


The Good Fight

by redaurorarora



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: BAMF Charles, Dark Charles, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Warning: Onslaught
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 19:12:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1910460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redaurorarora/pseuds/redaurorarora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Future Charles isn’t as convinced as he lets on that things are going to plan. His fears are confirmed when his younger self visits. He instigates a plan of his own, one that will ensure their victory…at a price. Something dark is awakened within Charles, something that could mean salvation or destruction, something that will do whatever it takes to win back what he has lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Behind the door, should I open it for you?

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title from Metallica's "The Unforgiven II"
> 
> Good grief, this story has been fighting me hard. It is shocking difficult to recharacterize someone you've been writing for over 3 years. But I'm giving it a shot. I'm not sure how quickly chapters will come out. Like I said, this story is fighting me some (it's aptly named), plus I'm teaching a class all by myself for the first time ever (simultaneous cheer and panicky flail) AND I'm trying to get my qualifying paper finished by the end of the summer. I'll do the best I can.
> 
> For those who haven't been introduced to Onslaught before, welcome! I hope this first chapter isn't too confusing. Let me know if it is. It will get better.
> 
> For those of you who have read my other Onslaught stories, hi! *waves* This Onslaught will probably end up being different than the one in my other stories. Not crazy different, but different all the same. Different events shaping him and all that.
> 
> Also, unlike my other Onslaught stories, this one has almost no basis in the comics. I tried, I really did, but I couldn't work it out with the other Onslaught story lines without making it a copy of at least one part of my other four stories. Which also makes this my first story with Onslaught where all of the plot not based in the movie is coming from my head. We'll see how it goes.
> 
> Special thanks go out to icanhearthedrums and aeskis for letting me bounce ideas off of them.
> 
> No copyright infringement intended. I don't own X-Men. Sadness.
> 
> Also, there will be spoilers for Days of Future Past. So many spoilers.
> 
> This picks up rather in the middle of things...as in smack in the middle of the movie. It should be fairly obvious what scene it is fairly early if I did things well.

One moment, Charles was sitting in Cerebro. His head and heart throbbed in time with the failure of the ability he'd controlled since age 12 and his fingers rested on the temples of a man whose faith that Charles would become some kind of great leader of the mutant cause was as unshakable as it was inexplicable.

The next, he was opening his eyes laying on a stone slab. Stained glass windows cast a muzzy golden glow over the…was it a room? More of a temple really. He sat up. There were two older men in front of him, two younger mutants at his side. The young woman - it must have been her mutation that brought Logan's mind to the past - was injured. He couldn't tell how, but she was obviously in pain. The young man at her side was trying to help, casting worried glances at the shaking woman's face every now and again. Friends, then...possibly more. They weren't even alive yet in Charles' time.

The two older men, though, were familiar. The one standing at the back of the other was obviously…well, Erik was stubborn. Of course he would keep the same cape for decades, well into a dystopia in which a cape would be neither productive nor imposing. Even here, in his own future, he couldn't bear to look at the man who had lost him so much.

He stood from the table. The man he leaned in front of was safer ground. He was almost positive of who it was. A glimpse at his eyes would confirm it-

"Charles," the man said, meeting his gaze.

The long-abandoned scientist within him scurried forward with a startled laugh. Because it was indeed startling, meeting oneself.

"Charles," he replied. As quickly as it had come, the novelty of the situation trickled away. He glanced around the room again. "So this is what becomes of us. Erik was right. Humanity does this to us."

His older self bestowed a humoring smile on him, one he'd given students when they'd been brave enough to speak up in class, but didn't answer the question quite correctly. "Not if we show them a better path."

"You still believe?"

"Just because someone stumbles, loses their way, it doesn't mean they're lost forever." There was more to that mantra, he could tell, but he didn't know this face, his own mind, well enough to read into what it was. "Sometimes we all need a little help."

Help. He used to think nobody was beyond his help. Naivety at its best. "I'm not the man I was. I open my mind and it almost overwhelms me."

The smile turned sympathetic, understanding. It struck him that his older counterpart had been where he was. How had he escaped the void of hopelessness? What happened in this older man's past, Charles' future, that spurred him to recover, to live again, to work with-

"You're afraid and Cerebro knows it."

"All those voices. So much pain." Tears were rising. There was no point in tamping them down. As if he could hide anything from the man in front of him.

Older Charles hesitated, asked permission with a barely perceptible look. Charles met his penetrating gaze head on. Older Him wanted to see everything. How could Charles deny a man trying to save his future? Permission given, he could feel Older Charles peaking around his mind. He flipped through memories of the past few days. Logan finding them. Breaking Erik out of prison. The plane. The disaster in France.

Older Charles' emotions were concealed, but still Charles could sense them. A thrill that their plan to get Logan back had worked. Fondness for the boy Logan had introduced them to – Peter (how anyone could be fond of the kleptomaniac, Charles didn't know). Pain at the confrontation between Charles and Erik on the plane (they'd fought many times, Charles could tell, but seeing it from the outside brought new perspective). Resignation after Erik had attempted to kill Raven. Resignation? As if he'd been expecting to fail.

Then Older Charles was gone, and they were blinking at one another from the golden room again. The older man took a deep breath, let it out, cast a barely-there glance to the unresponsive man at his back, then came to some kind of decision.

"It's not their pain you're afraid of. It's yours. And as frightening as it may be, that pain will make you stronger. If you allow yourself to feel it embrace it, it will make you more powerful than you ever imagined."

Charles pulled back, revulsion spreading as the true meaning behind his older self's words sunk in. "You cannot mean-"

Older Charles continued to look at him serenely. "That is exactly what I mean. It's the greatest gift we have."

"Gift?" Charles sneered. "To call him a gift- what happened to us?"

This could not be him. He would never-

He was pacing now. What could have happened to him that his older self was so willing to speak of their…pain…as if it were a blessing?

"Look at me, Charles," the deeper voice said from beside him. He was too lost in his own thoughts to process it.

Something must be wrong. Erik…Erik must have corrupted him somehow. "No! _He_ – our pain-" he spat, "is not worth this. Whatever future you have, He will only make it worse."

"You forget that I've lived with him far longer than you have."

That stopped him in his tracks. "Lived with _Him_? As in-"

"Cooperated. You have no idea the power you have within you. I didn't find it until years after where you are now and even then…there were extenuating circumstances. Keeping him locked away is only making him worse. If you accept him, you can be the end to the war we so desperately want to avoid."

Charles huffed a laugh. Older Him was a bit egotistical, wasn't he? Perhaps Erik had worn off on him more than he thought. "How do you know he won't go mad? Last time- Last time he tried to take a life, ruined another-"

"Allow me to talk to him. We can come to an understanding."

Charles hovered a few feet away from himself. He'd never been good at covering his distress, knew he was given away by his hitched breathing and the look of _terror-indecision-consideration_ etched over his brow. If he did this…if he let his older self talk to Him then that would be it. Because once that talk concluded, there was no way _He_ would allow himself to be locked any longer, not after he'd been acknowledged after so many years of neglect. _He_ was already angry at Charles for letting their telepathy go to waste.

His older self was trying to make it seem as if Charles would have the final say afterwards. As if he could talk with _Him_ then come out and discuss it with Charles and have Charles decide what to do.

They both knew that wasn't the case. The decision was to be made right here, right now.

The prospect of unleashing _Him_ on the world was not a good one. In fact, it was rather terrifying. But…he could feel the bare edges of what was happening in the future…what had happened to get them here. He could see all of Logan's memories of the Sentinels. Their friends would die. Most of the population would be wiped out. For the first time, he glanced at the figure he'd been so meticulously ignoring. He would've recognized the man even without the cape. Erik Lehnsherr had always carried himself with the grace and power a leader should. And here he was, standing at Charles' back, the pair of them working together to avoid the horrors of the future he himself could only catch glimpses of.

Not to mention how difficult it was living with _Him_ in the background. It was always a struggle, a constant fight he knew he would never win until the day he died. It would be so much easier if he gave in. If his older counterpart was to be trusted, it wouldn't be the end of the world…

He was so tired of fighting.

Without a word, he moved toward his older self again in measured steps and resumed his previous position, meeting his own older eyes once more. Old Charles smiled and put his fingers to Charles' temples. No going back now.

* * *

He'd forgotten the bewildering combination of chaos and order that his younger mind had been in 1973. He ignored most of it. There too much pain, too much hopelessness, too much of himself concealed, and time was of the essence. Finding the cage he knew to be his goal was easy despite the fact that the cage hadn't existed in his own mind for decades. He stood before it with barely a thought. The cage's occupant shot to his feet. The figure was at the bars separating them between one blink and the next.

An almost perfect replication of his younger self gazed neutrally back at him. Not the tired, broken Charles who had spoken with him moments before. This was like looking into a mirror and finding 1962 staring back at him.

It made sense, he supposed. He'd started the serum not too many years after '62, long before he fully surrendered to the hopelessness pervading the other Charles. With his telepathy gone, the creature standing before him would've gone with it, frozen in time without the ability to evolve with Charles. His short hair was perfectly in place. The blue cardigan and perfectly ironed pants he wore betrayed nothing of the sinister features that made the entity so dangerous; the fact that those features could be so easily obscured made him even more so. The only thing betraying his true nature was the burning orange aura that surrounded his body and the eyes the glowed like coal in a fire.

After a preliminary once-over (squaring up his potential adversary…everyone the creature met was a potential adversary, after all), the entity settled himself, hands locked behind his back.

"And who do we have here? I haven't had a visitor in, well, ever," his younger doppelganger said. The voice was crisp, sharp in a way that had been missing in the Charles of 1973.

"Come and see," Charles said with a tap to his temple. "I have nothing to hide."

The man in the cage hesitated. Charles could read the internal battle ( _Is this a trap? If it is, should I spring it? If I do, can I still gain an advantage? If I don't, what do I lose?_ ), before _He_ , as Young Charles so humorously continued to call it, narrowed his eyes. Charles opened his mind and let him flick through.

It was almost comical to watch the entity's face. His gaze was distant, but his blinking and breathing became more rapid as he stretched, greedy to take in as much information as he could as fast as he was capable. When Charles felt He'd had enough, he nudged the entity from his mind. It stumbled back, gasping and staring at Charles with wide eyes before his mask slid back on with a minute shake of his head. Another blink and He was back at the cage bars again, hands behind his back same as before, this time with his head tilted in curiosity.

"And what is Charles doing with his mind in the future? Better yet, why are you visiting me? We both know that, of the three of us, he's the one who needs a guiding light."

"A guiding light is not what Charles needs. He needs confidence, faith that his ability can be his own again. Things I suspect you have in excess."

The entity quirked an eyebrow. "Do I?"

"I know you and Charles better than either of your know yourselves for the time being. The future needs our help. We, Erik and I, trusted our younger counterparts to perform the task, but the situation has become tenuous. I cannot lose the opportunity to ensure the safety of our future."

"And you believe I'm the way to do that?" the entity said, incredulity barely concealed.

This time it was Charles quirking an eyebrow. "As I said, I know you better than you know yourself at the moment."

The creature ran a hand through his hair, sparing a glance at the bald head before him. As soon as he noticed he was being observed, he stopped and resumed his previous position. "You say you and Magneto trusted your younger selves with the task, yet here you stand. I can't help but wonder if perhaps Erik had more faith than you for once. This was not a spur of the moment decision."

"It wasn't."

"You're not as optimistic as you let on."

"In ensuring that our future is saved? Optimism is best practiced when one uses all the resources at hand."

"I'm a resource to be used? You would let me out, give me a taste of the world, then what? You expect me to do your dirty work and go back into my cage with a pat on the head," he entity spat, turning a full spin with open arms, a mocking gesture at his quarters. "I'm not a pet." With that, He slammed back against the bars, grasp white-knuckled on either side of his head that would have shoved through the gap had it been wide enough. "If you let me out, I will not be imprisoned again. I will do what I must to ensure that."

Charles gave Him the same serene smile he'd bestowed on his younger counterpart. "We don't expect you to go back."

The entity pulled back with such force he stumbled a few steps away. "You would willingly free me knowing what you know of me?"

"You will not be allowed to do anything...rash."

"And who will stop me?"

"Charles will."

The creature scoffed. "His mind is already weak." He walked the length of the cage and back, running his hands over the bars. "The only reason I haven't escaped is because these defenses are the same ones he set in his prime. I'll lock him away as he did me. You'll never see the light of day again."

"Then Erik and Raven will stop you. You are not as omnipotent as you like to think yourself."

"You expect me to believe that our sister and a man who can move a bit of metal could kill me?"

"Kill you? Perhaps not. Defeat you, most certainly."

The entity narrowed his eyes again. "There is no difference. Defeat comes only in death." He ignored the knowing smile that crossed Charles' face. "Regardless, somehow I don't think you came back here to sacrifice your younger mind to me."

"Indeed I did not. I have a proposition. Work together with Charles. When your task is finished, he will allow you to remain uncaged. To share his mind. Neither of you would be trapped. You would both have free reign."

The entity was quiet for a moment, staring at the man before him. "You must be truly desperate if this is the plan you sacrificed your X-Men for."

"You've seen what the future holds. You know the situation is dire. I would not have wasted our chance at saving the future if I did not have absolute faith in this plan working."

"Your faith has always been the problem."

"Beneath all the desire for domination instilled in you, you have your own desires. Freedom. Acceptance. I'm offering you that. They will last far longer than even your most successful attempt at domination."

The entity was silent, contemplating, wary. "You can ensure that Charles won't imprison me again."

"As you said, his mind has been weakened over the years. He has lost his hope. Hope that I wager he's managed to pass onto you." The creature finally dropped his gaze, moving it to the wall and giving it a casual once-over, running his hand down a crack in the rock. Charles continued, "We need him to hope again. You are the answer. Do we have a deal, Onslaught?"

His younger visage stood back, keeping his eyes on the wall for another moment before returning them to Charles, narrowing once more. Charles stared back, open, allowing Onslaught to look through whatever he liked. A leer split the entity's face. "Onslaught. I like that." Onslaught's eyes focused on something behind Charles. "What do you think?"

Charles turned to find his younger self standing at a distance behind him. His expression was somewhere between fear and resignation as he stared at the entity in the cage.

Old Charles stood to the side to allow Young Charles to come forward, eyes never leaving his doppelganger. He didn't stop until he was inches from Onslaught's face. Emotion poured off of him. Old Charles could feel it, remembered how open he'd been despite his best efforts to forget it.. The early 1970s had been dark for him, perhaps darker than any other time of his life. Even when Erik had tried to use him to commit genocide against humanity and left him to die as Raven stood by and did nothing, he still had his school to pull him from the shadows of hopelessness.

Young Charles took the time to look Onslaught over head to toe, slowly, taking every detail in. "I spent so many years fighting you. You've caused me nothing but pain. Pain and suffering."

"Yet, without me, what kind of man would you be? Certainly not the upstanding citizen we used to be before you locked yourself away and destroyed your greatest gift."

"Ha," Young Charles laughed humorlessly. "You sound like Erik."

The orange aura flared, then settled. "He is misguided, but he is not wrong about everything." Onslaught's demeanor shifted from uncompromising to imploring. "I can help you, Charles. I can make the pain bearable. Let me. Let me help us."

Charles recognized the tone immediately. Onslaught was a complicated creature, a devastating concoction of manipulation and genuineness. One could never tell how much of either one was receiving. It was a code even he hadn't cracked, and so he had no way of telling whether the Onslaught now genuinely wished to help his other half or if he was taking advantage of a situation already tipping in his favor.

Young Charles was silent again, probably trying to puzzle out exactly what Charles had been working on himself. He closed his eyes, sighed, reopened them with resigned determination. "I will free you because I cannot fight you anymore. As soon as the serum wore off, it was as if you'd never left. I can't- I can't anymore. He," Young Charles gestured at his older counterpart, "says we can work together. If it will save us from this future, then I will allow it."

Onslaught's face split into a grin. Young Charles turned to Charles. "I certainly hope you know what you're talking about."

Charles gave a nod. It was done now. Erik would perhaps be less than pleased, but he'd made plenty of decisions without Charles' input. This was for the best. Yes, the probability of Onslaught rebelling was high. Very high. But the entity would do what he had to to save the future before he did so. That much Charles knew. Onslaught had gotten them far in the war. If Charles accepted him earlier who knows where they would've been.

Yet he also knew how his younger self would see the situation. The future now rode on the shoulders of a being who, before Young Charles started losing his hope, was the equivalent of a psychopath that quite literally had the ability to control the world. He had faith it would work. Absolute faith, as he said. But faith, by definition, meant taking a leap into the unknown.

Young Charles pulled a key from his pocket and fit it in the lock. With Onslaught practically vibrating on the other side, the door swung open.

* * *

Logan felt when Charles pulled away.

"Find what you were looking for?"

Chuck was staring at him, not saying anything. Shit, had he messed up again? Really, any other mutant would be better suited for this. He'd told them patience wasn't his strong suit. Neither was helping those who were lost. What had he been thinking? Was he even helping or was his future even worse than it had been?

And what the hell was that?!

He could've sworn an orange flame had flared behind the telepath's eyes. Leaning over, he tried to look again, but the man had shut his eyes and had a hand to his head like the few times he'd overused Cerebro early in the war, back when they had a chance of saving people. Logan shook away the memory.

"Professor, you okay?"

The Professor's eyes fluttered open again. It almost seemed like he was watching for a reaction. There was none to be had. The eyes were the same blue as they had been before. Must have just been a trick of the light. But then why was he watching for a reaction? Had he been freaked out by what he saw in the future? That had to be it. Nothing more. Right?

Hank must have figured out the lights because they flickered back on. Sure enough, the kid strode back into the room not two seconds later.

"Power's back on."

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Charles smirked. Odd. He looked almost smug. Then again, Logan had never been the best a reading people. That was the Professor's job.

"Yes," Charles said.

As the telepath turned to head back to Cerebro, his two companions were deprived of the chance to see his eyes flare brilliant orange again.

"Yes it is."


	2. Keep me guessing, keep me terrified

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from Seether's "Words as Weapons"

The airport bustled with people, none paying much attention to the pretty blonde sitting on one of the benches. That was the point. Blend in. She didn't need any distractions. Well, no more distraction than the pain still shooting up her leg. Or her former leader trying to kill her. Or seeing her brother for the first time in, well, a while.

Shockingly, it was the last of the three that left her the most unsettled. Charles had been so happy to see her. Not that she hadn't been happy to see him. She hadn't realized how much she missed him. She was angry at him, yes, but he was still her brother. They'd grown up together, protected each other. She knew Charles better than anyone else on the planet (no matter what Erik tried to tell himself). Even after the years away, she could still read him. The man she'd seen in Paris was such a broken shell of the brother she'd known that she almost didn't recognize him.

Between Erik attacking her, the media debacle, and finding a place to get her leg taken care of, it wasn't until now that she had time to comprehend what she'd seen in him. There was so little of the man who had eagerly gathered a group of mutants to teach and train. And why couldn't he use his telepathy? What the hell had happened while she'd been gone?

Her thoughts were interrupted when the woman behind her turned her direction.

"Raven, stop. Stop running."

The woman had what Raven assumed were her own intonations, but there was no mistaking Charles' voice. Whatever had happened to his powers, it was fixed now.

"Charles, where are you?"

"Back at the house. Where you should be. I need you to come home."

After seeing him, she didn't doubt that statement. But there was something else…a lack of sincerity. He was manipulating her again. Always trying to get her to do exactly what he wanted. A voice whispered in the back of her mind, reminding her how broken Charles had been, how unlikely it was for him to have shifted so quickly from that to this, but she pushed it away. She had a mission.

"I know what I need to do," she said as she stood.

Not ten seconds later, another stranger startled her as she brushed by him. "If you kill Trask, you'll be creating countless more just like him."

Again, something was missing behind the words, but she didn't have time to analyze it. She needed to get away from Charles, get to her flight. She could already feel the beginnings of a headache from the energy it took to keep her mind shielded from Cerebro's spindly fingers.

"Then I'll kill them too."

Another stranger passed by. "Those are Erik's words not yours."

She scoffed, walked faster. He didn't know her at all. The conversation had quickly become a painful reminder of a part of the past she'd rather forget. She had to get away from him. She didn't see the stewardess in her path until they collided. They bent simultaneously to pick up the ticket Raven had dropped.

"The girl I grew up with was incapable of killing. She was good, fair, and full of compassion."

_You forgot naïve, sheltered, and yours to command,_ she wanted to add.

"I have compassion. Just not for Trask. He's murdered too many of us."

The stewardess let her go and the next people she passed made no move to convince her of anything. Charles was gone just long enough that she thought maybe he'd given up. Of course, then he popped up ten feet in front of her. She stuttered to a stop, couldn't stop the gasp of shock.

The mismatch between this figure and the man she'd seen earlier created a juxtaposition that threw her off balance. Physically, he looked the same as he had at the summit…scraggly hair framing his face (that the Charles she'd left in Cuba would've been appalled at), pink shirt replacing the professors cardigans he'd once been so proud of. That in itself gave the telepath an aura that left her unsettled, yet it wasn't what truly disturbed her. The way he was gazing at her…it was wrong. He was confident, and not in the way Charles usually was. He looked almost sinister with the barest trace of a smile brushed onto his face. His eyes twinkled with playfulness the same way they did when he was playing a game of strategy, yet marred by an unforgiving light she hadn't seen since-

"I grow tired of your games, Raven. You need to come home."

Not a request. An order. The voice she'd silenced in the back of her mind came back full force. Something was wrong.

"You're not my brother."

He threw his arms in the air in mock congratulation.

"Give the girl a prize!" the vision with her brother's face said, grinning outright. "Though not completely accurate. I'm just the part he doesn't let you see."

No, no, no, that couldn't be. He was supposed to be gone.

"I know exactly what you are. We met," she said, making sure to keep her expression perfectly neutral. She knew how he reacted to weakness.

"We did. It's been far too long."

"Not long enough. How- how are you here? He locked you away. You can't be here." The fear she was trying to keep from her voice was trickling through, she could tell. Even if she couldn't, the amused glint in Not-Charles' eyes confirmed it.

Not-Charles shrugged and walked a few paces before turning back, arms crossed behind his back in a pose so close to one of Charles' own it made Raven feel sick.

"He did lock me away. And now he's let me out."

"He wouldn't-"

"He did. And you, my dear, need to come home."

"Why would I come home to you?" she spat.

"How else are you going to save poor innocent Charles from me?"

She shook her head. "I won't. Trask deserves to die for what he's done. After that, I'll deal with whatever you've done to Charles."

Not-Charles sighed and glanced to the ceiling, the picture of "put-upon". His eyes were slowly melting into orange and there was a halo around his whole body the same color. "You misunderstand me. You don't have a choice in the matter. I may not be able to break those shields you have around your precious mind yet, but I can cause you considerable pain trying."

The pain dropped her to her knees before she could start screaming. Distantly, she felt her fingers digging into her scalp, trying to find a way to stop the agony. A thousand knives were stabbing her mind over and over again. She knew she was screaming, sobbing. Why was no one helping her? Couldn't they see she was dying?

Then it stopped. She fell forward, hands barely catching herself from dropping all the way to the filthy airport floor. Echoes of pain reverberated across her mind. She coughed out a last sob. Who had stopped him? Who was even capable of stopping him?

She looked up.

Oh. Of course.

Everyone around her was frozen…including the fiery version of Charles that had been attacking her. He had an ugly grimace on his face that she couldn't stand to see etched on Charles' features. Luckily, her eyes were drawn elsewhere.

Standing in front of her attacker was Charles. The real Charles. She could tell because he was just as broken as the man she'd just seen in Paris. He was staring at her as if he were in physical pain. Sorrow, guilt, and remorse fought for dominance behind his crystal blue eyes.

"Ch-Charles?" she asked, wincing at another residual lance of pain.

"Raven," Charles half-whispered back. He was kneeling in front of her not a second later, yet another reminder that he wasn't really there. Even before the events at the beach, he wasn't that quick.

"I'm so sorry, Raven. I had no idea he would attack you."

"What- he wasn't lying? You- you let him out?"

Charles winced and shot a glance back to his frozen doppelganger. "You remember who he is?"

"Of course I remember who he is," she snapped. She pushed herself up to fully sit up, forcing Charles to lean back so they were on the same level. This was not a conversation to have at a disadvantage no matter how much her head hurt. "He nearly killed those-"

"I know what he did."

"Then why did you let him out?! Why did you let him come back after all this time?!"

"Because he never left." It wasn't a shout, but it wasn't the calm Charles she was used to either. He was no longer hiding his frustration and pain. "There has never been a moment in which I didn't feel his presence. Never one second in which he wasn't prodding me to give in. He is everything I did not wish to be. And I was finally rid of him. The serum kept him silent because without my telepathy, how could he exist?"

Only about half of Charles' ramblings made sense, and it wasn't because he seemed halfway to manic as he said them. How had she not known about this…that the monster she thought he'd rid himself of continued to plague him? And what was this business about a serum? There were too many variables, too much unknown to make a strategic judgment. She needed more, but there was no time.

"But this- this serum isn't a factor now and he's back," she said.

The telepath's gaze had become distant, but snapped back to her at her words. "I'm sorry, Raven. It's been too much. I've lost- it's been too much. I saw the future and- you cannot imagine. It's our worst nightmare. I cannot allow it to come to pass if there is anything I can do to stop it."

More nonsense. Seeing the future? That was…even with all the different mutations out there, seeing the future still seemed, well, insane. Her chest constricted as she watched her brother watching her. Had he gone insane? Had his telepathy turned against him? If that was the case, logic would make no difference to him. She'd have to come up with an argument going on the assumption that everything he was saying was true.

"Letting _him_ out isn't the way. He can't be the solution. You're sacrificing everything that you are."

Charles shook his head. "But I'm not. Just because I wish to hide him away does not make him any less a part of me. He is who I am. In the future, we worked together."

"He's insane." _And you look it too._

"He calls himself Onslaught now."

"Then _Onslaught_ is insane. Jeez, Charles, how can you not see this? He just tried to kill me. Just like Erik did."

Charles flinched at that. It was a low blow, she knew, but something had to bring him back to reality.

"Onslaught is still me. I-" he paused, shook his head minutely with a glance back to his counterpart. "I have every faith he will do what he needs to to stop the future we saw."

She pulled back. "You're going to let him kill me?"

"No! No, never. He- We would never do that."

"Charles, he was trying to kill me literally two minutes ago."

"He wasn't. He was trying to convince you to come back."

"Well then he's terrible at convincing."

Charles winced again, not turning his head fully, but shifting his eyes to the side then back. "You're saying you didn't start considering changing your ticket to New York as soon as he showed up in front of you?"

She looked away.

"He's not going to kill you. I'll stop him hurting you more. I'm so sorry he attacked you. And I'm sorry to have to ask you this, but I need to know that you'll stop me if it comes to it."

"Stop you? Are you kidding? You just said he was doing what's best for the future." She couldn't keep the sarcasm from her voice in the last phrase.

"He has control of our body for the first time since I was a teenager. He will do what's necessary to stop the future we saw from coming about, but he's angry and he's powerful. If he keeps going after that, I'm afraid I won't be able to stop him. I need to know that you will fight for me. He's almost as angry at you as he is at Erik for leaving, but there's a part of him that's purely me…that loves his sister. It's why he won't kill you now. We're capable of hurting the ones we love, but killing is a step even Onslaught won't take. If we get out of control, you will stop us."

She stared at him. "That's a hell of a gamble, Charles. You're betting my life. If you're wrong…"

"It's not a gamble. I guarantee he won't kill you. Please, I don't have much time," he pled.

That much was evident. Not-Charles…Onslaught…wasn't quite as frozen as he had been before. His demeanor had shifted to a terrifying combination of anger and psychopathy. It didn't instill much confidence in what Charles was telling her. Then again, what choice did she have? Whether she agreed or not, she wouldn't be able to get far enough fast enough that Cerebro couldn't find her.

"I promise if I'm alive and he gets out of control, I'll stop him."

A weight lifted off Charles' shoulders. He leaned forward and cupped her cheek.

"Thank you. I've missed you so much. You're stronger than I ever gave you credit for. And I'm very sorry, but this may hurt again."

Before his words could register, Charles flickered out of existence. The pain slammed back into her, but pulled back almost immediately. Not fast enough that it didn't leave her panting on the floor again.

"See you in Washington."

When she looked up, Onslaught was gone.

"Are you okay, dear?" a stewardess asked. Oh, right, she was still on the floor. A crowd was gathering. Not good.

"I- I'm fine. I tripped."

She took the woman's proffered hand and got to her feet, wincing. Her head ached.

"Are you sure you're alright? Can I help you get anywhere?"

Loath as she was to admit it, Charles had been right. She did want to go back to Westchester. There were too many questions left unanswered. She needed to know more before she could figure out how to save Charles from Onslaught. She'd opened her mouth to ask the stewardess about changing a flight from Washington to New York, but stopped herself as Onslaught's last words struck her.

Onslaught knew where she was headed. He was going to intercept her. If she went to New York, she'd find an empty house where she'd be forced to watch whatever the entity decided to unleash on Washington unfold with her on the sidelines. That would be no good. She was left with two options: Risk trying to make it to New York before they left so she could figure out how to get Charles back or head to Washington and face Onslaught blind.

Why were there never any easy choices?

"Miss? Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine. The flight to Washington, where is it leaving from?"

"Just up on your right, I believe."

"And is there a payphone nearby?"

"Past the boarding area and to the left by the bathrooms."

"Thank you."

She was gone before the stewardess could pester her more about her well-being. The payphone was a long shot, but it was the best she was going to get.

* * *

Back in Westchester, Charles was taking off the helmet.

"Why didn't you shut her down?" Hank asked. The boy had the gall to sound frustrated.

"It's too soon. My power isn't fully functional yet."

He wished it was a lie, but it wasn't. He genuinely hadn't been able to get through Raven's shields. Damn Charles for crippling them for so long.

"Where is she?" the burly man…what was his name…ah, yes, Logan interrupted.

"She's at an airport boarding a plane," he answered. And he'd said it too casually. Hank was wondering why he wasn't more concerned. Concern was never his strong suit.

"A plane to where?"

"Washington DC"

Perhaps it would be easier to get them to follow his plan than he'd imagined.

Hank wanted to show them something. As they walked (rolled in Onslaught's case) through the house, the telephone rang. Hank made for it. None of that. With a tilt of Onslaught's head, the boy altered course. Onslaught wheeled to the phone and picked it up.

"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?"

There was a pause, then Raven's voice. "I'd been hoping."

"Even if you were able to tell them, they'd never be able to stop me."

"What are you after? Charles said you're both trying to save the future, but that's not all, is it? You have another endgame."

Intelligent as ever, his sister. He could feel Charles perk up, stretching to hear what he was going to reply. As if he'd be so stupid.

"You'll just have to wait it out, darling. Lovely to speak to you again. Sorry about the headache. I let my temper get the best of me. Oh, and don't waste your money calling back. No one will answer but me."

With that, he hung up the phone. Hank and Logan were waiting and Onslaught had an act to keep up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two sections are direct quotes from the movie. All the dialogue between Onslaught and Raven from "Raven, stop. Stop running." to "I have compassion. Just not for Trask. He's murdered too many of us." then the four lines between Onslaught and Logan from "Where is she?" to "Washington DC".
> 
> I'll try to update more frequently. A new semester starts up at the beginning of September. I'm not teaching my own class, but I'm a TA with quite a few duties. Hopefully I'll have more time to set aside for writing than I had over the summer.
> 
> Oh, and there will be more scenes that weren't in the movie. I had an epic writing failure attempting to write a non-movie scene, so I figured if I wanted to get something published it should be a movie-based scene to slowly build back in. We'll depart more from the movie as time goes on.
> 
> Thanks for reading (and for putting up with the long wait)! Reviews are welcome.


	3. Ain't no rest for the wicked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goal is to get a chapter done per month. I got this one done just under the wire, but, hey, it's done.
> 
> Chapter title is from Cage the Elephant's "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked"

Onslaught stared at the figure in the mirror. He looked…raggedy. Hardly how he should appear. It didn't help that the mirror was at a bothersome height. He'd almost had to resort to Raven's old vanity before finding a bathroom with a mirror that would show more than the top of his head. Had Charles really been in such denial that he hadn't properly equipped their home for his wheelchair?

He surely hadn't kept it in order since he'd started taking the serum. The first place Onslaught had headed after Hank had shown them the footage of Raven (and his very Charles-like, hope-filled spiel about people losing their way, which he was quite proud of, thank you very much) was his bedroom to try to get some rest. By rest, he obviously meant to stretch his powers, but Hank and Logan needn't know any different.

That was when he realized how wheelchair-navigable Charles' bedroom had become over the past few years. Which was to say not wheelchair navigable at all.

Hank had followed him (overprotective lad that he was) and had immediately offered to clear the room. Actually, he had squeezed into the room and started clearing a path while simultaneously offering to do it.

"As much as I appreciate the offer, I have some rather bad associations with this room. Perhaps I'll spend the night in one of the guest rooms until we can get everything put in its proper place."

Onslaught gave himself a mental pat on the back when Hank gave him a relieved smile.

"I'll air out one of the rooms."

He'd let McCoy be helpful. Surely, the boy had become accustomed to it over the last few years. Nothing wrong with having someone do the work for you. Unless, of course, it was something important. Never rely on others to do something important for you. They never fail to let you down.

Speaking of let downs, he'd finally gotten a good look outside of his mind at the face he was working with when he went to wash up for bed.

He picked up a chunk of wavy hair, pulled it up to inspect, and let it drop back down to his temple. Looking away from the mirror only gave him a better view of the Charles' room across the hall. He could see three syringes without much effort, god knows what else was strewn about the floor. He sighed, running his hand over the stubble covering the bottom half of his face, and turned back to his reflection.

"What a mess you've left me with, Charles."

He'd gotten his face and teeth brushed (twice because he couldn't trust a man who chose to wear the pink monstrosity of a shirt he had on with matters of hygiene) by the time Hank popped back in.

"The guest room is ready."

He finished wiping his face with his towel and plastered a genial smile on his face. "Thank you."

Hank paused and Onslaught dropped the smile. Damn, he'd never been good at genial. He could feel himself losing his carefully controlled image, tinges of orange starting to shine through. Once upon a time, he'd been able to contain it easily, but he was out of practice and it was actually taking quite a bit of energy to keep up the image of normality.

Perhaps he could get past Hank before the boy said anything. He was just a meter away from the door to the guest room-

"Charles, are you alright?"

He gave a silent sigh and looked towards the ceiling. So close.

"Why do you ask?" He needed to keep his face towards the door. He had a feeling his eyes were too telling for the boy to see, especially if he was already sensing something was amiss.

"You just…you were broken and now you're not."

"And that's a problem?"

"No!" Hank said, a bit too fast. "I only wonder…it was so rapid. I left to go fix the power and when I came back, it was like the past few years hadn't happened. Then in Cerebro, after Raven, you were detached. You'd just spoken with your sister and she refused to come home, not to mention everything that happened with Erik…To be perfectly honest, I was expecting you to fall further, not recover."

The boy was fidgeting, nervous. His mind was shaky.

But perceptive.

More perceptive than Onslaught been hoping.

"It has been a trying few days." He obviously couldn't pull off genial, so he tried for sympathetic. "I've perhaps compartmentalized more than I should. We must be prepared for what is to come. Erik showed his true colors. We know what he is willing to do now that he's been released." Charles' emotions were swelling again. Pesky little things. He swatted them away, felt Charles recoil at the ease with which he did it. Recoiled and yet…there was something else. Curiosity.

Intriguing.

He closed his eyes, focused on controlling the roiling power that had been surging since the serum had worn off. When he turned to Hank, the boy gave no reaction so he must have done okay. He continued, "We both know I wouldn't be functional if I wasn't taking some action to separate myself from current events. I'll need your help, Hank. When all this is over, no matter what the outcome, I'll need you to step in and deal with the result."

"Of course. I just-"

_Enough._

Hank blinked as his train of thought dispersed.

"I'm going to bed now," Onslaught said. "You should do the same. You look tired and we'll likely be dealing with Erik again in the very near future."

Hank furrowed his brow, opened his mouth then closed it. "Yes, of course. I'll wake you in the morning?"

"Thank you, Hank."

Whether it was the power or some odd withdrawal from the serum, Charles' body wasn't exhausted at all. His telepathy was reaching out, begging to hear, to observe, to control.

And why shouldn't it? A little practice wouldn't hurt.

"Hank?"

McCoy turned back around from halfway down the hall. "Charles?"

"I've changed my mind. I think I'd like to give Cerebro another whirl."

"You're going after Raven again?"

He hadn't thought that far ahead. But now that he was…

"No. I have something else in mind."

Hank's mind was hesitating. A push in the right direction was all it took to get him moving toward the basement with Onslaught following behind.

_You must let me talk to him first._

_Ah, Charles, I was wondering when I'd be hearing from you again. I thought we had agreed that I was I control now._

_And you'll remain that way. Even if I wanted to overthrow you, you know as well as I that that isn't possible with the state I'm in. I just…I need to give him a chance._

An intriguing proposal. That curiosity Onslaught had felt from Charles earlier was peeking through again. Curiosity at Onslaught's ability to keep emotions at bay. If Charles was associating that state with what they were about to do…that was something to see. He'd at least be able to gauge where Charles would stand in the event that drastic action had to be taken.

_Very well. I'll allow you to have the first go._

Charles gave the mental equivalent of cautious side-glance. _You're willing to cede control to me so soon after gaining our body?_

_As you said, I'm more powerful than you are at the moment._

_So you'll barge in and shove me out of the way when you decide you've had enough of sitting back._ The words left a bitter taste in Onslaught's mouth.

_No. I'm feeling particularly generous. I'll come in when you allow me to. It's in your hands._

Onslaught let a mental chuckle echo at the mystification that bled from Charles. It quickly turned to wariness.

_Why? What do you get out of it?_

_I get to see what your limits are, and I get the satisfaction of both of us knowing when you decide you've had enough and want to do things my way._

_If I decide to do things your way._

Onslaught chuckled again. _Yes, if._

_You're so sure I'll let you to take over again._

_Absolutely positive. You talk as long as you want. I'll come in when you've had enough. That's what I'm here for, after all._

Charles seemed satisfied enough, if a bit wary. But they were at Cerebro now. No more worrying. It was time for action.

* * *

Erik shut the door to his hotel. It rattled, either from poor building standards or residual power emanating from him after infusing the Sentinels with a more cooperative substance.

The humans seriously underestimated him if they thought their Sentinels couldn't be modified. With the flick of his wrist, in fact.

He didn't bother flipping the lamp on. The waning sunlight was enough to light the room. The hotel he'd chosen was dingy. The dinginess was what had drawn him to it. The doors creaked and the wallpaper was peeling, but the water wasn't brown and the bedspread was clean and, most importantly, there wasn't a speck of bright white to be seen. It didn't speak well for the cleaning staff's ability to care for porcelain (or perhaps the toilet and bathtub were supposed to be that color…he wasn't up on current trends in decor).

If he didn't see a white wall until the day he died, it would be too soon.

Charles would be appalled.

Actually, based on Charles' apparent mental state, perhaps he wouldn't be. The man had barely held it together during their brief reunion. It had been a shame they had to part so abruptly. Of the two of them, Charles had fared the worst, an impressive feat since guards didn't take well to mutant presidential assassins.

He was torn. Charles had let them all down. He had failed their kind, failed Erik. Mutants had died and Charles had been off doing who knows what, blind and deaf to the cries of their brothers and sisters in need.

And yet…

It was clear Erik had underestimated the damage Charles had endured as much as the humans underestimated Magneto.

He'd have to pay Charles a visit after his errand in Washington was complete. Assuming Charles would talk to him after he'd performed his task, that is.

The press conference didn't start until midday though. Plenty of time to rest and prepare.

Not ten minutes after he'd laid down on a truly heinous floral bedspread, he sensed another presence. The knife under his pillow flew towards the presence as he shot to his feet. The adrenaline rush tapered the instant he saw who it was. Charles stood by television, arms crossed over his chest, unamused eyebrow raised at the knife now embedded in the wall directly behind his shoulder.

"Always on the defensive."

"One has to be when we're at war." The knife flew out of the wall back to Erik's hand through the projection of Charles. He tucked it back under his pillow. "I see you've regained command of your powers. Sleep less important when I'm free to threaten your illusion of peace?"

"There are bigger things happening here than you and I, Erik. We're not at war yet. I've seen it. It's not a a future any of us want."

"You've seen what the humans did and you're still here trying to convince me to take the righteous path."

"I'm not here to convince you of anything."

Erik scoffed. Charles paused, glaring.

"I'm here to determine how much of a threat you're going to be."

"What are you going to do, Charles? Will you neuter me here and now if I don't agree to think as you do?"

Charles closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped just the slightest bit, inching closer back to the man Erik had played chess with on the plane. All the thoughts of pity he'd had for the telepath had been pushed to the back of his mind. They had to be with Charles occupying it.

With much less gusto, Charles returned his gaze to Erik. "Why did you try to kill Raven?"

Not the route he was expecting, but not an entirely unexpected line of questioning. He shrugged. "We were there for the same reason. I was doing what was best for the future. Mystique was going to be the death of us all."

"And killing is obviously the only way to eliminate threats, yes?"

"The most effective."

He felt the grasp on his wrist before he perceived Charles' movement. In a flash of paisley and chocolate, he was slammed into the wall, both wrists held firm above his head where Charles pinned them. The back of his head smacked into the wall right in the spot he'd stitched earlier. His vision whited out, but even without his vision he could tell Charles was close, close enough that he could feel the telepath's breath against his face.

When he blinked the stars out of his eyes, he couldn't hold back a sharp intake of breath. In the time between grabbing his wrist and pinning him to the wall, Charles had shifted from the broken man he'd gone to Paris with to the fresh-faced mutant who had led him into Cuba. Charles' eyes flashed between blue and orange before settling on an unearthly sienna color that smoldered even though his face was in shadow.

"What-Charles-"

The man who looked like Charles tilted his head. "I have been shot in the back. I have been betrayed and abandoned not once, but twice. My hopes, my dreams, have been destroyed. My sister was almost murdered. Coincidentally, all by the same man."

He looked insane. A sickly sweet smile slid across his face, creating a mismatch between message and expression that was hard to reconcile. What had happened over the past decade? Never before, even during his rage on the flight to Paris, had Erik felt threatened by Charles. But now, when Charles was so obviously occupying his mind and more than willing to exercise power, it reminded Erik just how powerful a telepath undefended against could be.

Charles let go of his wrists, yet they remained trapped above his head. No matter how much he pulled and struggled, he could do nothing. He reached for his power, felt nothing but solitude from the metal that usually sang to him.

"Charles-"

With a hard glare, Erik felt his body press harder against the wall. "You had your power tantrum on the plane. Am I not allowed one of my own?" Erik recoiled at the mock-wounded tone Charles put on, earning him a satisfied smirk before Charles started a slow pace, hands firmly held behind his back as if he were engaging in a debate with a particularly irritating student in class.

"You almost started a world war. Regardless of your intentions, you made it appear that mutants were the ones to assassinate the President of the United States. You outed mutants to the general public, tried to kill Raven with an audience, and left Hank hanging in a fountain like an art display. What if government officials had gotten to him before he got free, hmm? You blame me for a great many things, but if they got Hank or, heaven forbid, if they got enough of Raven's blood off the concrete…And for none of this do you have any regret." Charles stopped, looked Erik straight in the eye. "The only threat I see to the future of mutantkind is you."

It would've been easier to hear the accusation if whatever his mind had conjured up – because this had to be a dream – didn't sound so fiercely logical. He'd heard Charles work through problems before. One of the best parts of their short time together in the 60s had been seeing Charles throw out every piece of evidence, putting the puzzle together until the picture of the solution was revealed. This Charles had the same intonation, the same pacing, the same mental process. The only difference was the indifference. Whenever other beings be they mutant or human were involved, Charles applied a layer of compassion that had been stripped from this version.

Not-Charles stood deep in thought, one arm crossed over his chest, the other resting on it so that his fist laid over his mouth. Despite his anger at the telepath, Erik couldn't stand to see the emotionless shell in front of him. He pulled at the invisible restraints. Nothing.

"Are you going to kill me then, Charles?"

A half smile peeked out from behind Not-Charles' fist.

"I think I won't right now. I've had my fun. Besides, we'll see each other soon enough."

With the flick of Charles' wrist, Erik felt the restraints lift. He stumbled forward as his sense of the metal around him returned. He reached out to pull whatever he could toward the creature standing in front of him. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't Charles so he should feel no guilt.

He didn't get the chance.

"Pleasant dreams, Erik."

Erik sat straight up on the bed. The room was dark, much darker than the still dusky sky that had been shown through the window when he'd gotten back. The lamp on the bedside table shook. So did the windows. Shaking, it seemed, with his clinched fists. They stopped after he took a cleansing breath.

It was just a dream. It must have been. There was no sign of the apparition that had attacked him. Seeing Charles must have affected him more than he thought it had. He skimmed the room again, stopped when he reached the wall beside the television. There was a notch, barely noticeable, but there.

As if knife had been thrown into it.

He shook his hands out. It had to have been a dream. Charles wasn't that powerful, nor would he threaten to kill Erik even after everything he'd been through. And yet…

It wouldn't hurt to make one more stop on the way to Washington. After all, what would the mighty Magneto be without his helmet?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, I'm going to try to post at least once a month. That's my goal. I'm a tad busier than I thought I would be, but I'll do my best.
> 
> I may make revisions to this chapter because it's not my fave. Let me know if you have suggestions. I tend to write like the reading I do and I've been doing a lot of academic reading, which is great for school but not so great for fanfic writing. So let me know what you think and if I see room for improvement I may give it a shot. Until next time!


	4. I'm hearing voices from shadows inside me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Evans Blue's "This Time It's Different"
> 
> Forgive any errors or anything that's weird. I'm not editing this as much as I usually do because I want to stick to my schedule. I'm happy enough with it to post. It's a couple of scenes I hadn't actually planned, one of which changed significantly two days ago, thus the delay in posting. But I'm super close to it still being October, so I'm totally counting it as getting it in by my self-set deadline of before November.

Onslaught pulled the helmet off and ran a hand through his hair, huffing as it caught in a mess of knots. He tugged through them then gave it a tussle for good measure. His discussion with Erik had been enlightening. Perhaps Charles would be more amenable to his ideas now. His other half had been suspiciously silent since his abrupt ceding of control. If he could turn that pain Charles was feeling into something more, something powerful-

"Any progress?"

Onslaught froze. So lost in his preparations, he'd forgotten about the machine's other occupant., He lifted his head just the slightest bit without turning towards McCoy. The boy could be an asset, but only if he was willing to work with Onslaught.

"Charles?"

His tone was too casual. The kind of casual that's forced like smalltalk at a dinner party.

Hank had stood by his side through his whole discussion with Erik, taking surreptitious readings throughout the whole interaction. Readings he could handle, but surreptitious ones, well, that was never a promising sign.

Three seconds of probing his mind and, look at that, Henry McCoy had confirmed his suspicions that something was wrong with his mentor. Smart boy.

Onslaught set the helmet down on Cerebro's panel. "I had a talk with Erik."

Hank startled, paused. Onslaught could feel the mental gears turning. McCoy wasn't worried for the man that had once been their ally. Rather, he didn't want any more variables in the mix when he was dealing with whatever was happening with Charles. What a fascinating mind.

"Why?"

"Not 'what did he say' or 'how did it go'?" Onslaught turned to the scientist for the first time, allowing a touch of power to spark free.

Hank took a step back and dropped the façade of casualness. Thank heavens. He was quite bad at it. Undercover work was not in his future.

"What's happened to you, Charles?"

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with. You've been very helpful over the years, the only person who has been truly loyal to me. You're as much family as Raven is. Don't make yourself an obstacle."

The threat was lost of McCoy. The boy was too busy looking down at his readings. "You're not- your readings are different but not by much. I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't looking for it. The baseline is there, completely normal. So…you're Charles, but…not. Are you- possessing him?"

Onslaught raised an eyebrow. "I'm not a demon, Henry."

"But another mutant. One who can-"

"Take over people's minds? And tell me, why would anyone want to take over my mind right now? Who knows about us? How long has it been since either of us have done anything productive, anything that someone might want my mind for?"

Ah, that struck a nerve. Hank looked pained before boxing it away with all the other regret he held for the past few years. "You're not different enough to be another consciousness anyway. So if you're not another consciousness…then something that already existed? Another side of him? One he's kept hidden...related to his telepathy? Everything was fine until your telepathy came back."

"Oh, you really are very clever. Spot on. I'm impressed."

Hank practically staggered at the confirmation, leaning over the side panel just at the edge of the platform. "Another part of you you've kept hidden away gaining consciousness and taking over. Sean would flip," he said, dazed. He really was taking it quite well.

"Just like one of his soap operas. Yes, Sean would flip. If he weren't dead."

Hank bolted straight again. All the pain he'd boxed away swept back tenfold with a side of horror. Onslaught had ripped open a wound that had never really healed. It had been covered, ignored, never given the proper care it deserved among all the other problems they had come across. It was a perfect weapon.

"But Sean is dead. He's not the only one. We're seeing the beginning, and it will only get worse. So few of us are alive to carry on in the future. Not even you…"

Pause just the right amount of silence to let that fact settle in. Charles may not have been adept at reading people without telepathy, but Onslaught made it an art. He could see the exact moment when the revelation struck the boy scientist. So young…yet not young enough to not fear mortality. He wheeled forward. McCoy didn't pull away.

"I've seen it, Hank. That future must be avoided at all costs. I am the way we can do that. Now, are you going to help me avert a future where you, our fellow mutants, and our human allies are victims of genocide or are you going to beg me to give you your Charles back? Your Charles," he added quickly when he felt Hank's mind snap back towards concern for his mentor, "who couldn't even stand the thought of using his telepathy 24 hours ago, who was so broken that all he did every day was lie around wallowing in self pity, dragging you down with him."

Hank opened his mouth, closed it, narrowed his eyes at Onslaught. "You're giving me a choice between allowing my friend to be subjugated to another being or trying to free him?"

"No. I'm giving you a choice to keep your memories of the past hour or not." Hank paled. "If it's any consolation, I'm not doing any subjugating. Charles chose this all by himself. He's the one who began our conversation with Erik."

"I…" Hank said after a pause.

"Is it really that difficult a decision? Do I seem that vile? Have I done anything to make you question my motives?"

"You took over the body of my friend," Hank replied with a scowl.

Onslaught sighed. "But I didn't do anything to hurt Erik or Raven."

"Because you don't have enough control back yet."

Onslaught let the shadow of a smile flit across his face. Charles made many questionable decisions, but keeping Hank around made up for, well, not all, but some of them. Such a keen mind to work with.

"That's neither here nor there. I cannot give you any more convincing data than my word that Charles and I are both doing what we feel is best for the future. You'll have to draw your conclusions from that. What's your decision? Shall I take your memories or are you going to help save the future?"

"If I help you, Charles will come back afterwards."

"I give you my word that as soon as we finish our task in Washington DC, Charles will return."

"Fine. Charles, if you can hear me, I hope he's telling the truth. We'll find a way to get you out if we have to."

"He's very appreciative, but he assures you you need not be concerned. Go to bed, Hank. We'll deal with the rest of this in the morning."

Hank had gone to bed, though it took a rather substantial mental nudge to get him to actually sleep instead of running probabilities in his head. _What had happened? What exactly was Onslaught? What's the likelihood he's telling the truth? What could he do if Charles was a hostage in his own body?_ It was exhausting and, to be honest, mind-numbing and Onslaught didn't need any more of a headache than he already had from Cerebro. So he felt no qualms sending Hank off to bed. Charles didn't even protest, which was actually more concerning than it was a relief.

He wheeled himself into the bedroom McCoy had aired out. He didn't have the luxury of sleep though. Not that he needed it, but Hank was right. He hadn't been powerful enough to do any real damage to Erik. He'd been far more adept at his attack this time than with Raven at least. His power was returning quickly. It certainly needed to with what was coming the next day.

He laid down on the bed and stretched out. It was a wonder how much better this room was. Even with the faint musty smell still pervading the mattress, it far surpassed the mess of sweat and sorrow in Charles' old bedroom. Perhaps he'd have that room closed off after all this was over. Or burn it with all of that damn serum of Hank's.

That was a problem for another time. He had more pressing issues to attend to if he wanted to be in top form.

He settled down into the bed and closed his eyes.

Within moments, he was standing by the open French doors of Charles' old office. It was dark and the room was in disarray. A breeze just on the wrong side of chilly rustled some stray papers on the floor. Charles was sat on the balcony with his head in his hands staring out into the starless night.

Onslaught leaned on the doorway. "Are you appeased? I let you talk with him. I didn't force you back."

Charles kept staring forward, unseeing. "He's so far gone. How can anyone's logic be so twisted? All he wants to do it kill. Anyone who gets in his way is justified collateral damage to him. How can we ever work together?"

"Not easily."

Charles looked up with a furrowed brow.

"Your older counterpart allowed me access to his mind. I don't think he intended to allow me to see what Erik did to us, but…"

"But?"

"He sent Mystique to incapacitate you, kidnapped a teenage girl to take his place in a machine that would take its user's life. He came to your rescue when you were kidnapped by a madman then took advantage of you at your weakest and almost succeeded in using you to commit genocide. He provoked a student until she killed you. Killed us."

"Killed us?" Charles was looking at him with exactly the incredulous expression that Onslaught had been expected.

Onslaught shrugged. "We came back. We're harder to kill than one would imagine. He didn't know you'd survive when he watched you die though."

Charles' head dropped back into his hands, broken all over again. It almost made Onslaught pity his other half.

He could feel Charles' shift further from forgiveness. Mostly because his own desire to find a reason to forgive Lehnsherr was increasing. How annoying. He sighed. "To his credit, he regretted every one of those decisions. Your death more immediately then the others, but eventually he regretted it all. He's…a lost soul. I know how much you like lost souls."

Charles scoffed. "No. I'm…whoever I became in that future, I don't know how to get there. I'm through trying to be the telepath everyone expects me to be."

Onslaught felt another shift, different this time, so sudden it threw him off balance. It was…butterflies in his stomach except they spread out, fluttering in his back and up his chest. He squirmed, just the slightest bit, against the doorway. No need to show Charles a weakness. The squirming did nothing to alleviate the discomfort. If anything, it aggravated it more.

Then something snapped. As cliché as it was, it was akin to s rubber band stretched to the extreme then being let go to assume its natural state again. The doorway was the only thing keeping him standing. The squirming stopped. He could hear voices in the distance. What- what exactly what happening? He'd never felt anything like this before.

Charles continued seemingly oblivious. "We will save the future. Whatever happens after that, we'll deal with it when the time comes. I'm tired of allowing others to dictate the direction our life takes."

"You won't fight me?" Onslaught had to struggle not to clear his throat and even then the question came out breathier than he'd have liked. The butterflies were replaced with a bubbling sensation high in his chest.

The Charles who pulled his head out of his hands was not the same one who had let it fall there. His stony face spoke louder than anything that could pass through his lips. It was the face of a man who had made a decision with no intention of turning back. The odd feelings all ceased, leaving Onslaught grasping the doorway with one hand, knees almost too weak to hold him up, staring at Charles.

"You're the way to stop that future from coming to be," Charles said. "You won't kill Raven to do it. I see no reason to try to stop you."

His strength was returning now. He pushed himself up, taking a silent inventory of his body and mind. "Even if Erik gets in our way?"

Charles was silent a moment, staring at the sun peaking over the horizon. "The Erik I knew is gone. Who knows what changing the events that led to our partnership will do our future. He's destroyed my family more effectively than any human could have. If Erik gets in our way, we should treat him as he would treat us."

The hardened voice and declaration weren't from the Charles he'd been imprisoned by for so long. And then it made sense. The feelings he had, the one Charles seemed to be ignoring…he'd been right when he thought of snapping into place. He and Charles were now in perfect alignment. Neither was fighting the other, no hidden feelings or desires were there for one to push off onto the other. Nothing but harmony. That feeling bubbling up in his throat? It was power. The power of not being restrained. The voices echoing in the peripheral? His telepathy stretching out, unencumbered.

Charles was broken enough to finally accept who he truly was, and Onslaught was ready to meet him halfway.

Charles, broken as he was, seemed to know what was happening. He even offered Onslaught what appeared to be the barest trace of a half-smile. A quirking of the left corner of his mouth really, but it was possibly the first time he'd offered anything other than hostility to his other half. Onslaught grinned back at him. Charles turned back to watch the red sun turning the sky a flaming orange.

Perhaps he didn't have as much work to do to prepare after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is going to be the White House scene from the movie (with some changes obviously). I've been having a little bit of a hard time with it. I know exactly how it's going to end, but how to get there had been eluding me. I'll do my best to get it out in November.


	5. That's a fine looking high horse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Hozier's "Take me to Church"
> 
> I worked all month long and got…half the White House battle scene done. I might end on a slight cliffhanger (maybe?). Hopefully this chapter has a balance of action, introspection/characterization, and build-up to what I intend to be a VERY action-y next chapter. You'll all have to let me know if that worked out.

The plane ride to Washington was uneventful. Onslaught tried to appreciate the extra practice at not laughing aloud or rolling his eyes as Logan tried to inspire him to greatness. It was a shame the man's inspirational speech was lost on Charles. "Your best is enough." How very sentimental. It was just maudlin enough that Charles might've been touched by it.

Now that he'd embraced his full potential it was, of course, unnecessary. He was quite proud of his responses, though. Logan ate it up. Hank…well, Hank's mind was whirring at about a mile a minute. It had flickered questioningly for a moment, wondering if perhaps Charles was back, before dismissing the thought. Perhaps his I'm-just-a-humble-professor-I'm-not-a-threat tone wasn't as convincing as he thought.

Then again, Hank already knew what was happening. He didn't count.

Yes, the whole operation continued to be a bore. Raven hadn't even deviated from her original plan. He'd expected more from the girl. She was easy to locate in the middle of a cluster of officials. Easy because, while she hadn't physically deviated from her plan, mentally she was as unsure as a squirrel crossing the road.

_Get revenge on Trask._

_Save Charles._

_Trask killed our brothers and sisters._

_Our only true brother is in danger._

And then the Sentinels were revealed in all their glory.

So these were the creatures who would be their destruction. Once again, humanity proved to be the stumbling fools Erik so feared. Why could they never understand that weapons could always be turned against them?

The only way to truly defeat your enemy was to change their mind. Peace would be so much easier if everyone thought the same way.

Apparently, seeing the Sentinels so many of their brethren had died to create (and would die to defeat) made Raven's mind up for her. Her hand was reaching for the gun at her side, images of Sean, Emma, Azazel, and Angel's faces flashing through her mind.

Revenge. What a petty endeavor. Killing should be for a purpose. Trask had already created the Sentinels. Killing him now was just…extraneous. Especially when he could be made an example of.

Time to say hello to dear sister.

* * *

Her original plan had been to shift into an official high-ranking enough to be allowed in the front rows, but not high-ranking enough to be expected to do anything. That was as good a plan as any, so she stuck with it.

What was the end game now, though? Could she really stop Trask knowing Onslaught was slinking around wearing Charles' body? She hadn't seen him in a decade, but he was still her brother.

She didn't have time to have an internal debate. A decision needed to be made. Trask or Charles.

Her mind was still wavering when the curtain dropped, unveiling the mechanical monstrosities with as much pomp and circumstance as she would've expected from Nixon. They were…clunky. Yet they were obviously effective from what she could glean from her broken conversations with Charles about the future (unless Charles was insane, which didn't seem such a far off assumption now that she'd talked with him).

She couldn't stop Trask from making them, but she could get revenge for their fallen brothers and sisters. She felt for the gun she had at her waist.

And felt herself freeze up before she could move any further.

_Ah, ah, ah,_ a voice in her head chided. _Best not do anything rash, darling. There are cameras. I'd hate for there to be another incident like Mother's Christmas party. She was very cross with you for making such a scene with the hors d'oeuvres._

An echo of tiny quiches and caviar flickered in her mind. She recoiled. _Don't you dare talk to me like my brother._

_You try to deny it, but I can taste your lie. You know, as much as you hate to admit it, that I'm as much your brother as the boy you grew up with._

She didn't want to think about this. Not right now. _Let me go._

_I know you better than you know yourself. You'll regret this. If for no other reason than it will get you killed. I have no intention of- damn._

The sound of thrusters firing sounded at the stage. The Sentinels were activating. The crowd was eating it up, but they weren't looking at Trask and Stryker. If they were, the twin expressions of confusion and fear on the two men's faces would tell them that this wasn't part of the plan.

That fact became abundantly clear when the Sentinels started shooting.

Onslaught's held tight to her mind. She still couldn't move, not even to protect herself. She was going to die here. Charles had lied. Onslaught was going to let her die out of spite.

Her body threw itself to the side just as bullets hit where she'd been standing. Control returned halfway through a clumsy somersault. She used the momentum to bring herself back to her feet. Glancing to the crowd, she could see Onslaught righting himself again after apparently being jostled by the crowd. He didn't look panicked. He looked angry. Livid. Logan and Hank were nowhere to be seen; probably they dove for cover when the Sentinels started firing. Onslaught glanced in her direction then back toward the sky.

Would Onslaught have pushed her out of the way? Or had Charles overridden the entity's control to keep her from dying?

Everything was happening too fast. A police officer picked her up, started pushing her in the opposite direction, towards where Trask and the president were going. Exactly where she'd have wanted to go two days ago, but now…

"No! My brother is out there!"

"He'll be evacuated with the rest of the spectators, sir. We need to get you to safety."

The crowd parted enough that she caught another glimpse of Charles between running spectators and overturned chairs. He was staring at something in the sky that she couldn't see with furious anticipation, inviting whatever was now casting a shadow over where he sat. That could only mean one thing.

Erik.

Erik, who always had grand plans that never ended well for anyone.

Erik, who had no idea he was walking into a fight with Onslaught.

Erik, who had tried to murder her in front of a mass of people.

For a moment, she was disappointed she would miss the fight between her brother and her would-be killer. Except it wouldn't be much of a fight. Onslaught would kill him. Not just kill him. Rip him apart, body and mind. Hell, the creature almost ripped her mind apart and apparently he still had some form of twisted brotherly love for her. What would he do to the man who had abandoned him?

More importantly, how would Charles deal with it when he came back? If he did this, killed Erik in cold blood, would he ever really be back, regardless of Onslaught's control? She'd never killed anyone before, but she knew it changed people. She was prepared for that change. Charles…Charles wasn't.

_I need to know that you'll stop me if it comes to it._

She'd made a promise to Charles. What she intended to do to Trask, that could wait. He'd still be here. But Charles might not be. She'd made up her mind.

Unfortunately, she'd made it up a second too late. Before she could escape the hands pushing her into the Oval Office, a heavy metal door was closing behind her.

She was trapped.

With Bolivar Trask.

In a box.

A _metal_ box.

Shit.

This was not going to go well.

* * *

Seeing a stadium floating towards the White House hadn't particularly been the move Onslaught had anticipated Erik would make, but of course he'd make a statement. He'd want to cut his prey off from outside help. Why not do it with a bloody baseball stadium?

The stadium made its way to the ground. Erik was there in the middle. The metallokinetic hadn't even thrown a spare glance in his direction, too busy making a spectacle of himself and dragging the Sentinels around like puppets. Oh, this would be fun.

What he hadn't quite anticipated (and he wasn't proud of this) was the effect the stadium hitting the ground would have. Rafters and concrete broke off from the structure. He heard Logan call his name just as he noticed the rather large piece of lighting equipment heading straight for him. He threw his arm out, felt a surge of power...a surge of power that sent the majority of the debris flying away from him.

How interesting.

So interesting, in fact, that he was too busy examining the residual orange flecks of power encircling his hands to notice the second rafter until a dull pain was bouncing around his head and his body was going numb. He felt himself get thrown from his chair as more metal crashed around him, then darkness.

* * *

Charles was floating. He felt Onslaught brushing by him. The entity wasn't conscious from what he could tell. That's what a rafter will do to you, he supposed. Of course Onslaught would get cocky and get taken out by a rafter. Although something had happened beforehand. A secondary mutation? How had he not known, all this time? Had he been denying himself so much that he'd suppressed another power?

He could feel what was going on around him, his telepathy reaching out even though he was physically numb. Erik…Erik was wreaking havoc on their surroundings. He watched through Hank's eyes as the man set Sentinels on him and Logan.

Obviously mutant lives only had value if they agreed with his views.

_And killing is obviously the only way to eliminate threats, yes?_

_The most effective._

G-d, he was impaling Logan, driving metal through the man's body as he crawled across the lawn. There was no mercy.

There was never any mercy.

Erik's soul was irrevocably blackened by the events of a past he would never let himself move beyond. How Charles had been so blind to it in 1962, he wasn't sure, but it was clear as day now. There would be no redemption for Erik Lehnsherr. Magneto manipulated those around him the same as he did his metal. Once it met his needs, he discarded them, all with no clear forethought as to what it would mean for anyone other than him.

A flame was rising in Charles, igniting a fire in him unrelated to Onslaught, who was still floating unaware of the events occurring around them. No, it was up to Charles to take the reins until his other half recovered.

He could do nothing for the time being. His body wasn't responding to him, an experience he was annoyingly familiar with. He'd wait for the right moment to present itself. Then, he would strike with the same mercy Erik had shown Logan.

* * *

Trask's alarm was going off. This was not good. Raven eyed the men around her. She wouldn't be able to fight them all off. Just as the first of them grabbed her, the box shuddered.

Oh, Erik. At least your timing is good.

It was chaos. Men were being thrown left and right. She needed a new form. William Stryker gave her that. Now she needed a new plan. She had approximately 30 seconds before Erik would have the safe room out in the open. He obviously didn't want them all dead immediately, otherwise he would have crushed the box where it was.

25 seconds

He must have another purpose. A point to make. Erik always had a point.

20 seconds

Some message he wanted to send humanity to show them how wrong they were, one that involved a show of mutant power.

15 seconds

It always involved a show of mutant power. He didn't just kill. He killed and left the bodies for everyone to see.

10 seconds

But he wouldn't even need to leave bodies for someone to find. Not with all the cameras here for the press conference. All he had to do was make sure they were broadcasting. Whatever he wanted to do, it would be live for the world to see.

5 seconds

What was his end game here? What was he going to do on live television?

The safe room landed. She made a less than graceful grab for the railing to keep her balance. Another hand grabbed next to hers.

President Nixon.

Oh.

She maneuvered herself between the man and the now ripped open side of the safe room, wincing with everyone else as light flooded in.

And of course they were all stupid enough to pull guns. Guns which were now hovering by Erik's head. The cameras turned towards them and clicked on with a graceful twist of Magneto's wrist.

She ignored what came next. If she'd learned anything about Magneto over the years, it was that the man loved a self-righteous monologue.

Her mind was occupied by something else. At some point, Erik had reacquired his helmet. He appeared relatively unharmed.

Where was Charles?

Onslaught wouldn't let Erik go. That much she knew from their conversation at the airport. So why was the man standing in front of her unscathed? Had something happened? Onslaught, he didn't matter, but Onslaught in Charles's body…if Charles' had been hurt…

No. She needed to focus now. Bolivar Trask was standing right beside her. Erik sounded like he was coming to a close. She'd been halfway listening, always keeping an ear open to hear surroundings.

"Let this be a warning to the world. To my mutant brothers and sisters out there, I say this. No more hiding. No more suffering. You have lived in the shadows of shame and fear for too long. Come out. Join me. Fight together in a brotherhood of our kind. A new tomorrow that starts today."

She heard a crash off to the side. She still didn't have much peripheral vision in the box. Regardless of what was happening elsewhere, she had to make her move now. Deep breath, move forward, order those who held her back with the same authority the man whose face she wore would. She felt the gazes of everyone in the safe room move from her to Nixon, still gaping behind her, as she shook off the hands of the men who hadn't quite put together what was going on. They eventually got the message and closed behind her, protecting the real president from view.

Nice to know they could work with an unspoken plan, at least.

"You wanna make a statement? Kill me. Fine. But spare everyone else."

No way Erik would buy it, but she needed time. Figure out a distraction so she could use the plastic gun she'd kept on her since Paris.

Another crash from the side. She risked shooting a glance to the side. One of the Sentinels was ripping the roof off a car. Why-

"An eye for an eye, Mr. President. But you have no intention of sparing any of us. The future of our species begins now."

Good lord, how many propaganda papers did Erik read to prepare for his monologues?

Time was running out. Her hand twitched towards the plastic gun. Could she dodge the bullets of a dozen guns and get off her own shot? The chances were…slim. But if she died, she wouldn't be able to keep her promise to Charles, and Charles' fate was far more motivation than her own.

The guns hovering in the air cocked. If she threw herself to the left, then flipped over the overturned platform, she might just make it. She shifted her weight to her left foot ready to push off.

She didn't need to.

The Sentinel had either succeeded in its task or given up because it was hurdling towards them now, barely sparing a sideways glance at another pile of rubble. Erik threw his hand out. The robot was ripped apart by an invisible hand. The grotesque torso kept dragging itself towards them. It was, quite frankly, terrifying, but she had other things to worry about. As soon as she was sure Erik had dismantled it enough that it wouldn't murder them, she pulled the gun from her waist and took her shot.

Erik hit the ground at the same time as the guns. The whir of the Sentinels silenced. Raven let her disguise drop and stalked towards Erik. Even bleeding from the neck, he could kill her with the flick of his wrist.

"You used to be a better shot."

"I still am."

A complicated flip later, Erik lay unconscious on the ground. His helmet didn't protect against head injury. How ironic.

Feet shifted behind her. She whipped around, gun lifting automatically towards the potential threat. Trask was still back there. She certainly wasn't stupid enough to think she'd changed his mind. He would still want her for whatever plans he had.

Except no one had been moving to do anything. In fact, the men in the box parted, giving her the perfect shot of the scientist, if that was what he insisted on calling himself.

Then everything froze.

Trask's image flickered into a much more familiar face.

"Charles?"

"Raven."

It looked like him and sounded like, but it had before too until it hadn't. And this Charles was different. He looked like the same man who had stood between her and Onslaught in the airport, but he held himself just close enough to how Onslaught did, always confident of his control over the situation, that her mind couldn't quite separate them.

"How do I know it's you and not Onslaught?"

"Ah, well, Onslaught is still recovering. We took a bit of a knock to the head when Erik dropped a stadium over us."

"He dropped it on top of you?!"

"Well, not completely on top of us, but dropping a stadium does tend to loosen a few rafters and beams, if you hadn't noticed."

He gestured around them. Of course, the mess wasn't just overturned chairs and cars now that she looked. Electrical equipment and support structures littered the ground as well. Erik certainly never did things in halves.

"He's recovering quickly," Charles continued. "And…it seems we've discovered a bit of a secondary mutation." He glanced down at his hand, then back at her. "But that's beside the point. We don't have much time. Why are you pointing a gun at Bolivar Trask?"

She gaped at him. "Why- he's killed our kind, Charles. He deserves to die before he can get his hands on any more of us. Are we really going to talk about this now?"

"I don't see any better time to talk about it than when you have a gun pointed at the man. Do not make us the enemy today."

Apparently, they were going to do this right now. "Look around you! We already are!"

"Not all of us. All you've done so far is save the lives of these men. You can show them the better path."

There was the slightest movement to her left…a flash of a tan jacket scampering around the rubble before disappearing behind a pile of what appeared to be lighting.

"I've been trying to control you ever since the day we met. Look where it's gotten us. You've seen what it looks like to give into the desire for revenge." His eyes flicked to the unconscious body behind her, then back. He had a resigned expression, one that pointed to a past remembered. He'd never really forgiven himself, she knew, for what Onslaught had done when he'd first manifested. He was tainted in his eyes. She wasn't. "Once you kill a man, you can never reclaim that innocence. Everything that happens now is in your hands. I have faith in you, Raven."

He closed his eyes, posture shifting just the slightest bit straighter. An orange aura flared around him. "Make us proud, Raven," Onslaught said, with a smile.

Then he was gone.

She lowered the gun, made eye contact with Trask, then Nixon. If Charles was right, she'd just taken the higher ground. Even if they did attack her, perhaps a few would defend her…the girl who had saved the President then been killed by his hand. She was the hero right now.

It was a slow, the realization of what position she'd put them in.

They could let the hero go, lose their opportunity to experiment on her, or they could kill her and never get the chance to benefit from it dealing with the backlash.

She felt the beginnings of a smile cross her face.

Checkmate.

A cry from the side pulled her from her thoughts. Hank was stumbling backwards with shock painted over his face. He ducked behind a car just as the pile of rubble he'd been kneeling beside exploded in a wave of fiery orange.

No time to gloat. She dropped the gun and made the only move she could. She ran straight to Erik, stooping low enough to grab the helmet off his head (and savoring the hard thump as he hit the ground again) and put it on in one sweeping gesture as she continued to sprint towards the edge of the stadium. It was a little big on her. Lucky for her, she was a shapeshifter. She secured it and crouched behind more of Erik's carnage.

And not a moment too soon.

"Oh, Erik," a voice she barely recognized as her brother's echoed. "Whatever shall we do with you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's right. I got to 3500 words with half the White House battle.
> 
> There are LOTS of quotes from the movie. Magneto's speech plus parts of what Charles says to Raven are straight from the movie.
> 
> I also have a shout-out to "A Spark Neglected" in the form Onslaught thinking about peace being easier if everyone thinks the same way.
> 
> I struggled with the title this time, but I went with Hozier because (1) I've been listening to "Take Me to Church" A LOT while writing this fic and (2) everyone seems to be on a high horse. Erik obviously is with his neverending quest for revenge being more important than literally everything else in his life. Raven is so set on revenge that she'll ignore everyone's warnings about the future and her brother's safety. And then there's Onslaught, who isn't out for revenge, but I think he as a character is very much on a high horse all the time, so he counts. That's my drawn out explanation for the title.
> 
> Next chapter will pop up sometime in December.


	6. All this bad blood here, won't you let it dry?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from Bastille's "Bad Blood"
> 
> So…hey everyone! I fell off the face of the planet there for a little while. If it's any excuse, I finished and turned in my qualifying paper and am now officially a doctoral candidate. This involved a lot of revisions, which possibly is what led to the MASSIVE writer's block. This chapter fought me. It fought me hard. Which is funny since it's a fight chapter. Anyway, I am SO SORRY for the delay. I hope this 5000 word chapter makes up for my long absence. I'm not sure how I feel about all of it, but this is what my brain came up with, so here it is.

Erik was numb, swimming somewhere between bright reality and the shadows of unconsciousness. Voices floated in the ether. A few sensations snuck through. The distant feeling of the helmet slipping from his head. Jarring pain as his head thunked back to the ground. He'd been doing something, that much he knew, but whatever it was skittered away when he got too close to it. Better to leave it be.

Oddly, it was a gust of winter air ruffling his now unprotected hair that reminded exactly where he was. Washington. The White House. The Sentinels. Mystique. The world became a spinning mess of colors as he sat up far too fast for the head trauma he'd undergone. He shut his eyes against it, trying to regain his bearings.

A voice said something through the cotton that had taken up residence in his ears. Registering actual words was still a task his brain wasn't quite up for yet, though. The voice would have to wait. Lifting an uncoordinated hand, he found a knot had formed on the back of his head. Reformed,really, since it was directly on top of the line of stitches he'd just put in. No doubt the wetness he felt was blood. Mystique had a hell of a hard kick.

"Not hard enough."

This time, the voice registered enough to jolt him to attention. He recognized that voice. It shouldn't be here right now. Especially not when his helmet had been stolen from him again.

The cameras around him flipped off, drooping like a class of disciplined children. The ripped off side of the President's panic room reattached itself, shocking a few surprised cries out of the men now trapped inside.

Ignoring the sharp stabs of pain radiating through his head and neck, Erik turned towards the voice. He'd known who it sounded like. His sight must have been affected somehow, though, because what he was seeing…it didn't make sense.

"Charles?"

The man hovering - and he was hovering - amidst the rubble was recognizable as Charles only by the shoulder-length mess of hair whipping to and fro as he moved. The chair he sat in could very well have lived a second life as a university art project, comprised of pieces of debris that had been molded together. How Charles had gotten his hands on such a creation, Erik didn't know, but even more unsettling was how he was able to keep the chair off the ground. It hovered a few feet in the air, gliding over the wreckage without the distasteful chore of actually touching it. His eyes burned a bright blue and held barely a flicker of the kindness he associated with his friend (though that kindness had not been evident at any point during their last meeting either, so that wasn't terribly surprising).

The figure was familiar, yes, but the familiarity was not because the man wore Charles' face. This was the man from his dream…the dream that motivated him to reclaim his lost helmet.

"Not a dream, I'm afraid."

The chair settled on the ground. The man who wasn't Charles brushed some dust from his cardigan, smoothed a wrinkle from his pants, frowned when another crease formed in its place. Then the man leaned back in his chair, a king on his throne, and deemed Erik worthy of meeting his gaze.

The growing tension was marred by muffled pounding and shouts coming from the box. With pursed lips and a tilt of Charles' head, a series of thuds sounded from inside the box, then silence.

"Only sleeping," the man said. "I'll leave assassination and mass murder to your capable hands, Magneto. I only harm those who are sabotaging my cause."

"And what cause would that be?" Erik croaked. He hadn't realized how much dust he'd kicked up and inhaled during his show of power.

A serene smile crossed the telepath's face. "Not yours." Another tip of the man's head and the rubble around them shifted, just the slightest. A warning.

This…this thing who dared wear Charles' face was actually trying to threaten him.

He needed a weapon and he needed to get it without thinking about the fact that he was getting it. Keeping his thoughts trained on the telepathic imposter in front of him, he let his power creep out, feeling for the loaded guns he'd surrounded himself with before Raven had knocked him out. If he could only keep the fraud occupied.

"Who are you?"

"Did you hit your head that hard?" the entity replied with amusement coloring his voice. "I'm Charles Xavier. Do you not recognize me?"

"You're wearing Charles' face, but you aren't him. I'll ask you once more, who are you?"

"I am who I said, though perhaps not the version you were expecting. You told me on the plane that I didn't fight hard enough for those I love. This is me, fighting harder. Fighting the good fight, if you will. I'd have thought you'd be pleased. Except, no, you wouldn't be happy about that, would you? Because I'm a telepath and we both know that in your world all mutants should live to their fullest potential except for telepaths. Wouldn't want any pesky mind-reading revolutionaries mucking things up once you've had your way with humanity."

A loaded gun flew to Erik's hand. He whipped it forward, aimed, and fired three shots. He aimed to incapacitate. He had too many questions for a kill-shot right now.

Somewhere in the mess of debris, two voices gave panicked shouts.

If they were concerned for the Charles doppelganger in front of him, they didn't need to be.

The telepath raised his hand in a manner suspiciously similar to the way Erik imagined he looked when he exerted his power. The bullets were deflected into the ground. The man didn't so much as a blink as grass and dirt were tossed into the air where the bullets impacted.

"That," the creature said as he lowered his arm, "is how you deflect bullets, Erik. Keep it in mind next time and perhaps you won't end up causing any unfortunate mishaps." He glanced down to the chair and back.

If there were any doubts as to whether this wasn't Charles before, they were dispelled. First, because, even at his worst, Erik knew Charles had never blamed him for his paralysis…for reasons Erik could never quite comprehend. Second, because Charles was arrogant enough that he wouldn't have failed to mention acquiring telekinesis.

Twitching his fingers, another gun sprang to his hand. Before he could fire, Hank came running forward, waving his arms.

"No, stop, that- that is Charles!"

McCoy sounded certain in the way only someone with facts could. So certain that Erik paused. The gun was ripped from his hand and pulled into a mass with its discarded brethren. The mass crunched together in synchrony with Charles' doppelganger's fist, then fell back to the ground. His advantage was gone. Because of McCoy, who had stuttered to a stop, panicked gaze flickering between Erik and Charles.

Erik clinched his jaw. "If you think forcing another mutant to tell me what you want me to hear will stop me, you are sorely mistaken. Let him go," he grit out to the imposter. He may have tried to kill McCoy a few minutes earlier but he wouldn't stand for a telepath controlling the boy's mind.

The doppelganger shrugged. "He has his free will. I'm playing no part in what he's saying."

Hank held his hands up in a surrender position, eyes no longer darting between them, but focused on Erik. "It's another part of his mind asserting itself, from what I can tell," Hank said. "He bottles himself up, all the actions he wants to take but can't. Those suppressed desires somehow interact with his telepathy and manifest in the form of an alternate personality."

The entity in the chair kept its face a neutral mask that somehow still screamed DANGER. "And when did you have time to map all that out?"

Hank turned to the telepath, straightening, but not quite able to suppress the fear in his eyes. "Am I right?" The entity's hard stare didn't flicker. The non-answer was answer enough. "It made sense. I went back to Cerebro before we left, checked the readings again. I know Charles well. He would get a look in his eye when he wanted to do something he knew would break his moral code. He would make jokes or…or offhand comments. "If only I could…" and that sort of thing. The things you were saying and the way you were acting, it was in a manner that Charles wanted to but would never allow himself, and you said you weren't a separate entity…"

Hank faced Erik again. "He calls himself Onslaught."

"Thank you, Henry, you're helpful as ever," Onslaught said.

Hank spun back to the telepath. "And you swore that you would let Charles come back when we finished here."

"You made a deal with this thing?" Erik yelled.

"And I will," Onslaught said, ignoring Erik's intrusion. "When we're finished here. Which we aren't. Our task isn't complete until the future is secure. How do you suggest we go about that?"

Hank broke his gaze away from Charles and turned his horrified gaze to Erik. "You- you're going to kill him?"

"Why not? He tried to kill you. He put a bloody Sentinel on you. And did you see what he did to Logan? Let me refresh your memory. He drove metal through Logan's body and tossed him away like an old toy. Trask may have created the Sentinels, but he was never the real threat. Magneto was. Is."

"Onslaught-"

"Enough."

Hank's eyes rolled up and he dropped to the ground.

Erik stared at Hank's prone body, letting what the scientist had revealed sink in before his gaze crawled back to the telepath. He'd thought he was dealing with another entity, one who was taking advantage of his memories, using Charles against him. Thinking about it, that didn't explain Hank and Logan's presence though. The Beast wouldn't be there without his mentor and there was no reason why an entity independent of Charles would kidnap Hank and bring him along solely to confuse Erik.

So this…this was what Charles had become. Not the shell of a man he was on the plane, but an enemy that wanted him dead. He'd always thought Charles should want to kill him, for all their differences not to mention the bullet to the spine and taking his sister (a sin he hadn't thought much of until Charles' outburst on the plane ride to Paris), but he'd never thought the man actually would. Charles had been far too kind and forgiving. But even the kindest men had a dark side, it turned out. If this little show didn't prove it, then he didn't know what did. It was why he could never give up his cause. Men always succumbed to the darkness within.

Then again, Hank had said this wasn't really Charles. This was something else. This was Onslaught. So was Charles really trying to kill him? Or had he been overtaken and corrupted by another part of his mind as Hank seemed to think?

Onslaught continued to stare, apparently intent on waiting for Erik to make the first move.

"So you're going to try to kill me?" Erik said.

Onslaught laughed. "Try?"

He needed a strategy. Half his mind was insisting that this couldn't be Charles, that even if it were, Charles wasn't in control and needed saving from Onslaught as much as Erik did. The other half told him to neutralize the threat and was hard at work calculating how to defeat a telekinetic telepath.

He pushed himself off the ground, cape brushing through the grass as he went. His mind was still racing, but it didn't matter, did it? In either scenario, he'd need to stop this Onslaught. He just needed to do it in a way that wouldn't kill Charles.

While part of Charles' mind used Charles' body and powers to try to kill him. Fantastic.

The guns weren't an option. Plenty of metal was strewn about, but if Onslaught could stop bullets then…

He glanced around the stadium. The dormant Sentinels stared down at them with empty eyes.

It was a gamble. If this was what it took to save his and Charles' lives, though, then so be it.

With the turn of his wrist the Sentinels came to life again. Onslaught's eyes flickered to the machines as they rose into the air before returning to Erik.

"Do you think it wise to reengage the mutant-killing machines?"

"I'm not going to sit here and allow you to kill me."

One of the Sentinels maneuvered towards Onslaught, kicking up dust behind it as it picked up speed. Surely, one would be enough. All he needed to do was get a single hit, knock Onslaught unconscious, and he'd have bought at least some time to figure out what the hell was going on.

"And you're going to try to kill me right back? That is exactly the kind of logic that got us into this predicament to begin with."

Why wasn't Onslaught moving? At this rate, his task was going to be much easier than he'd expected.

The Sentinel reached out. Its hand was a car's length away when Onslaught finally turned towards it. With a careless flip of his hand, the Sentinel began disassembling. Each piece separated and settled into a neat stack until the entire machine was nothing but a pile of folded laundry waiting to be put away. The stacks were even more absurd against the apocalyptic backdrop the fallen stadium provided.

An eerie silence settled. Sirens screamed in the distance. Onslaught turned back to Erik, eyebrows raised. Erik stared back. He'd just taken an intricate piece of machinery apart with barely a glance and even less effort. How had Charles held that much power back for so long?

"I suppose I just needed motivation."

Both men raised their arms. Erik waved his at the Sentinels, directing them toward the enemy. With a toss of Onslaught's arms, an obstacle course flew into the air, anticipating every move Erik and his Sentinels were making.

It wouldn't stop them though, Erik thought. It may slow them down, but it won't stop them. Only Magneto could do that.

A car slammed a Sentinel across the lawn, rolling the machine several times before it threw its obstructer away and started running back toward its target only to be hit again. Another was caught in a series of wires as they wrapped around it again and again until it couldn't move. They couldn't hold forever, not with the Sentinel struggling as it was, but they were doing their job for now. Yet another was busy tearing at a shield made of a mish-mash of stadium doors. Every time the Sentinel ripped one piece away, another slammed into its place. Any move the Sentinel made, the shield countered.

Onslaught, for his part, was sitting perfectly still, eyes closed in concentration. The occasional furrow of his brow betrayed the strain he was under. Except…his eyes were darting back and forth under the closed lids. That wasn't a sign of stress. He was searching for something. But what could he possibly be searching for?

Two of the Sentinels were defeating their obstacle adversaries when Onslaught's face split into a triumphant leer. His eyes burned bright orange when they shot open.

"There."

The Sentinels froze.

Oh.

It had been a long time since Erik had been so thoroughly taken off guard. It wasn't a feeling he particularly enjoyed. One that he avoided at all costs, actually. But how was he supposed to anticipate this?

Where Charles would've taken a primarily defensive stance, Onslaught had gone on the offensive. He hadn't been concentrating on defending himself. He was trying to find the path Erik had created to control the Sentinels.

They were still playing chess, a continuation of their rusty game on the plane, except Erik had been under the delusion that he was still playing against the partner he was accustomed to. The face. The face had thrown him off. He'd forgotten that this was an enemy he didn't know. Charles, he could anticipate. This warped version of Charles, he had no idea how to strategize against. It had been too fast. He'd had too little time to prepare. He-

He couldn't just surrender. Charles had told him he was the most powerful mutant he'd ever seen. If that was the case…then perhaps he stood a chance. He just needed to find out how.

Onslaught wasn't going to give him time to.

In one motion, the remaining Sentinels jerked their heads towards Erik. Without any more prelude, they all leapt at him. He staggered back, power whipping out of him almost unconsciously. The first Sentinel ripped apart from the chest; another's head went flying into the pile Onslaught had left. Onslaught jerked away as pieces of debris scattered towards him. A particularly sharp shard heading towards Hank's body changed directions midflight and thudded to the ground elsewhere. The Sentinels kept coming. It was all Erik could do to stay ahead of them. He tore them apart, every one of them, until their parts were scattered around him like rings around a planet.

As soon as the last threat was vanquished, his knees collapsed under him. The stadium had been a feat of strength, but he had been prepared. This attack…it had been a decade since he'd been on the defense. Loath as he was to admit, he was worn out.

"What weapon will you use now, Magneto? Anything you choose, I will turn it back against you. You cannot win."

Everything Charles had been to him, a bright light in the darkness, someone who had believed he could be better, a friend (as damaged as that friendship had been), it was all falling apart. With a frustrated yell, Erik threw a piece of Sentinel at Onslaught. Onslaught deflected it at the last second, but had the gall to look aghast that Erik would even try such a maneuver.

A Sentinel, Onslaught had no issue taking apart, but a smaller, less brutal attack had almost succeeded. Perhaps the key to overcoming Onslaught wasn't anticipating Onslaught's next move. Perhaps it was Onslaught's expectations of how Erik would attack. If he could challenge those expectations, take Onslaught off guard, he could win. So what would Onslaught expect from him? Well, he'd just put a stadium over the White House. In Cuba, he'd pulled a submarine from the ocean then tried to turn a curtain of missiles back onto the fleet that had fired them. Magneto always did things big. So Erik would have to do things small.

Testing his theory, Erik threw a second shard at Onslaught from another side. Onslaught waved it away again. Again, he waited until the last moment to do so.

"What are you doing?" Onslaught asked.

If he could catch Onslaught off guard, just once, that was all it would take. If he had to kill him, then so be it, but perhaps Hank could offer an alternative. He just needed time.

More and more pieces threw themselves at Onslaught. Onslaught threw each one away, gestures more and more manic as more pieces attacked him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Erik saw the flash of reflected light. Mystique was crouched next to Hank, helmet gleaming, shaking him. He roused, she whispered something, and he pulled something from his pocket. Onslaught didn't notice this, swept up as he was in the whirlwind of debris he was creating in his battle with Erik.

He continued his assault on Onslaught, whose irritation was quickly morphing into something more dangerous. He'd have to make a move soon.

Now.

A sliver of metal from Onslaught's make-shift chair broke off and wrapped itself around his neck. Everything that had been hovering in the air dropped to the ground. Raven gave a shout as a rather large Sentinel shoulder dropped inches from her. Onslaught's hands were at his throat now, scrabbling at the choker Erik had pulled around him.

He had him. Now he just needed to hold it until oxygen deprivation set it and-

Chest heaving, Onslaught threw his own arm out. A ripping sound followed that Erik barely had time to comprehend before a substantial strip of his own cape was winding itself around his throat like a noose. His concentration wavered, but held.

The men were grotesque mirrors of one another, each with one arm thrown out in front of them while the other clawed at their necks.

Now it was just a question of who could outlast whom.

How had everything gone so wrong? He'd had the upper hand. He'd had the humans at his mercy. There was no sign of Charles. Given, there was no sign of the Charles he knew either. He hadn't wanted to fight his friend. He was thankful that Charles hadn't been there. How was he now having a one-on-one face-off with the one person he didn't want to fight?

"If you had taken a moment to think about your actions," Onslaught choked out, "you might have realized there is no other way for this to end. If you continue on the path you insist on following, we will always be in opposition. For decades, you and I will clash with our followers blindly fighting our battles for us. We never stop our game of chess. We just move from ivory pawns to mutant ones."

Erik felt a tug in his head and an increase of pressure that had nothing to do with the strip of fabric around his neck.

"You will destroy everything I care about, try and succeed in destroying me, and lead us into a future through which no one, human or mutant, can survive. All because you think you're the only one who can bring this world to heel? You're wrong. You use mutants for your own purposes. You toss them aside when you're done with them."

Erik groaned as the pressure increased up again. It was nearly unbearable.

"You did it to me. You did it to Raven. You tried to kill Hank. What you did to Logan- It's unforgivable."

His head was being ripped in two. He was sure of it. Something was pulling away from him. He tried to hold on but his grip was loosening and loosening until-

Darkness

* * *

She didn't have long. That much Raven knew.

She was getting that front row ticket to the battle royale she'd been hoping for. Magneto versus Onslaught. Las Vegas would have a field day if this were an actual fight. The ratings would be higher than Ali versus Liston.

She wasn't disappointed. They were using Sentinels to battle each other. Sentinels. Because that was apparently the level of hatred they had for one another. Except…Erik wasn't really trying to kill Onslaught. She'd seen the man try to kill someone before. And Onslaught, well, he could kill Erik with a thought right now thanks to Raven's procurement of his helmet. And yet here they were playing rock 'em sock'em robots.

She needed a strategy. She needed a distraction.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hank's jacket caught her eye.

She got to him just after Magneto had destroyed all the Sentinels.

"Hank, Hank, get up."

A few more shakes than she thought necessarily later, Hank was blinking up at her.

"Raven?"

"I need you to be Beast. Can you do that? I just need Onslaught distracted for a few seconds."

"I can't."

"Of course you can. It's just a few seconds. He likes you. I don't think he'd hurt you."

"That's reassuring, but not what I meant. I mean I can't turn into the Beast right now. I took too much of the serum to keep the Sentinel from sensing me."

She didn't have time for this. "Charles mentioned a serum. It…it, what, counters mutations?"

Hank shrugged. "In the most basic sense, yes."

"You think that's a good idea to have lying around right now?!"

"Perhaps now isn't the best time…"

A piece of shoulder armor fell inches from her hip. She was pretty sure she let out a shriek of surprise even her eight-year-old self would've been ashamed of before containing herself. Onslaught and Erik were strangling each other now because of course they were. Plan A was out the window. Time for Plan B.

Step one of Plan B: Come up with Plan B.

"Do you have any more of that stuff?"

"Two more syringes. Why? The Sentinels are gone."

"You're smart. You'll figure it out. Hand 'em over."

She was just standing up, syringes in hand, when everything went to hell. Onslaught had somehow managed to go into monologue mode (while being strangled, which was pretty impressive, actually). Erik was yelling.

Then Erik was on the ground. Not moving.

Even more off-putting, Onslaught was staring at the fallen mutant, panting, panicked eyes wide but distant. The metal had fallen away from his neck, leaving an ugly red line where it had broken the skin, but Onslaught was paying no notice to it, instead raising the palm of his hand to his temple.

"No, this, this isn't-"

He clinched his eyes shut, close to the point of hyperventilation, then he let out a blood-curdling scream.

She had no idea what was going on, but now was her chance. She ran.

Just as Onslaught ran out of breath, she slammed the needles into his neck and pushed down.

Her brother's body convulsed under her hand; he choked out a cough, then went limp.

In the post-battle silence, she could hear the police trying to break through the perimeter the stadium had created. She had stopped Onslaught, but what the hell good was that going to do them? Three men lay in varying states of consciousness around her, not to mention the box full of unconscious officials Onslaught had left. How the hell was she supposed to explain this to government officials without outing Charles as what the humans would no doubt consider a threat more menacing than Magneto?

Hank staggered over to her side before dropping in front of Charles and lifting the man's head.

"Is he okay?" Raven asked.

"Raven," Charles' voice whispered.

"Charles!" she shouted as she fell to a crouch crouched by Hank. "Check Erik," she whispered to the scientist.

"But-"

"In a few minutes, those men are going to find a way in here. I need to know whether we have to get two semi-conscious men out through an entire police force or if I'm leaving them a body."

Hank went to Magneto.

Raven pulled Charles' face up with both her hands. He blinked back at her, dazed, but there was no trace of Onslaught.

"Is that you in there?"

A weak laugh. "Would you believe me if I said yes?"

She smiled back. "Probably not."

His smile faded as he glanced behind her. "Erik…is he…"

"He's alive," Hank shouted.

Raven glanced back at Charles, but his face gave nothing away. She frowned.

"What happened just now, Charles? You were screaming and-"

"I- I can't…we need to leave," he said.

She nodded. As much as she wanted to take the time to have a heart-to-heart and assess whether Charles was actually Charles, it wouldn't do much good with the wrath of the DC police and probably the FBI raining down on them.

"Raven?" Hank asked.

"Put Charles under something. You and he weren't able to get out of the way, something fell on you, you got trapped, and they missed you in the evacuation. You got front row seats to Magneto locking everyone in the panic room then overusing his powers thrashing the Sentinels apart in a fit of rage and collapsing."

"What about you?"

She shifted into an unostentatious police officer. "I'm taking Magneto in. Except I'm, unfortunately, not going to make it to the precinct. We'll meet back at the jet in an hour and get back to Westchester from there. Be quick. Make sure they don't take him to a hospital unless you're able to get more of that serum in his system. We can't afford Onslaught coming back."

"What about Logan? Erik threw him…"

Charles gave a pained look. "He's at the bottom of the Potomac with rebar running through his body."

Damn it, Erik, really? "Make it three hours til the plane then. I'll take care of that too. Just- just go. We don't have much time."

She met Charles' gaze once more. He offered her a small smile.

"I kept my promise."

"That you did. Thank you, Raven."

Something was still off. Not Onslaught-level off, but Charles didn't look like a man who had been saved from a nightmarish alternate personality. Whatever it was would have to wait until after she'd saved everyone else, though.

Hank pulled Charles to a pile of trashed rafters. Raven moved to the entrance. When the police streamed in, she'd jump in with them and make a beeline to Erik. Easy peasy.

Then she'd save the burly guy from the bottom of a river.

Then she'd find a way to lock Erik up in Westchester.

Then she'd figure out what the hell was up with her brother while making sure to keep him drugged up on some kind of weird serum that suppressed his power.

Being in charge wasn't nearly as fun as Charles made it out to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I will try harder to get the next chapter out in a timely manner. Let me know what you thought of it. Was it insane? I feel kinda like it might've been insane. But I liked it.
> 
> Comic references: Onslaught has telekinesis in the comics. There was another reference, but it hasn't fully played out yet, so I'm going to wait to note it until the full reveal.
> 
> Cultural references: Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston fought each other for the World Heavyweight Championship in boxing in 1964 and 1965. I hear these fights were kind of a big deal. Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots were introduced in the mid-1960s. The comparison I make here isn't perfect since the Sentinels weren't actually fighting one another, but still. They're fighting robots. I went with it.
> 
> Random reference: When Charles says "So you're going to try to kill me right back," it's a nod to Firefly when Mal says "If someone tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back." It's one of my favorite lines.


	7. All alone he turns to stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title comes from The Used "The Bird and the Worm"
> 
> Oh, are you guys waiting for a story update? My bad! Here I thought I’d have a ton more time to do fun writing once I turned in my qualifying paper. I didn’t even think about the fact that I’d have to start my flipping dissertation. You know what takes a lot of time? Thinking up what you’re going to do for your dissertation. So, updates might take longer than the previous goal of once a month. I will do my best not to let it get longer than two months. I’m not quite sure how much longer this will be. I could shorten it pretty substantially or go a different direction that would make it substantially longer. Maybe I’ll pick a middle ground…
> 
> Anyway, thanks for anyone who is still patient enough to still be reading! Here’s a long chapter to make up for the long wait.

Hank would be dead if Magneto had gotten his way. In the midst of the all out battle between Onslaught and Magneto, then the off-the-cuff escape plan Mystique cooked up, Hank hadn't really had time to dwell on that fact. Now that he had nothing to do but sit at the controls of the plane, though, the events of the past few hours could settle in.

That Magneto had set a Sentinel on him. That, if he hadn't had the serum in his pocket, he'd have had no way to escape.

No matter how much he tried to focus on the controls in front of him, the episode on the White House lawn kept replaying itself.

If he hadn't had the serum…

If Charles had been not unconscious but dead under the pile of rubble…

If Mystique hadn't had a plan…

It wasn't until halfway through the flight back, when Mystique slunk into the cockpit to see if they were hitting turbulence, that he noticed his hands had started shaking. He'd been so focused on whether Charles was back and watching him for signs of shock that he hadn't even thought to watch himself. Then again, part of his response could be accounted for by the tremendously high likelihood that he had overdosed on the serum. Funny, he'd always been so careful with dosages that he didn't actually know what would happen if one overdosed. He'd have to make notes when he got back, though all his observations would be confounded by the stress he'd endured the past few days.

What he was feeling now, he decided, was far worse than after Cuba. Yes, they'd lost friends when Erik and Raven abandoned them and he'd been dealing with his recent transformation into the Beast. At least then, though, he'd had a support group. What had followed, Vietnam, the dissolution of the school, Charles' slow descent into depression, it had been just that…slow. Nothing like the bandaid-ripped-off feeling that occurred after a true battle.

And, really, this was only his second battle unless you counted his fight with Magneto in Paris. Was it all that surprising that his mind would go into some form of shock to deal with it? After Cuba, he'd had Alex. He'd had Sean. He'd even had Charles, depressed and unstable as he was.

Now, he had no one. He was surrounded by, at best, flight risks and, at worst, enemies.

Magneto was laid out unconscious in the back. He was the most obvious threat. Yet, the most obvious threat so often ended up being the smallest threat. At least he knew where he stood with Magneto, even if that standing was attempted murder should he be an obstacle.

It was the ones you don't expect to hurt you that cause the most damage.

Charles, it seemed, had returned in place of Onslaught. Yet, he still seemed as unreachable as he was before. He'd remained conscious, though he radiated exhaustion. He alternated between staring at Erik and watching the clouds out the window, his eyes occasionally flitting over to Mystique when she was sat next to him. His gaze wasn't menacing or even angry, more thoughtful than anything else. When Mystique tried to engage him in conversation, he returned pithy, half-hearted answers.

Onslaught had said Charles would return once their task was through in Washington. He had, but after an experience like he'd just gone through, could the Charles who returned really be the same as the one who had left? This Charles was far more pensive. He was sharp and aware in a way Charles hadn't been since before Cuba. Even when they had first met, Charles' intelligence and wit had been tempered by an air of playfulness that had been long-since replaced with cynicism. The man who had come to awareness after Mystique had injected him with the serum was most certainly Charles, but his distant gaze that bordered on calculating when he thought he wasn't being watched betrayed a shift. Still sharp and aware like he was before Cuba, but also distrustful and jaded like he was after. A dangerous combination.

Mystique, for her part, hadn't given up on trying to get Charles to open up until the plane had started shaking. Despite their somewhat checkered past, Hank had to give her credit. Without her, they never would have made it out of Washington.

But how long would she stick around to help? Even as she cast him surreptitious glances and made stilted conversation that was surprisingly good at downgrading his shaking to mild trembling, he couldn't forget how long she'd been gone. She had been an ally of Magneto, his right-hand woman from what he understood, so trust wasn't exactly something he was ready to hand out to her yet.

Logan, the one person who had been an ally since this mess had started, had run off as soon as he'd awoken from being dead (and wouldn't that have been a fascinating mutation to study). It wasn't surprising. The man's future personality was gone, replaced with one who had nearly stabbed Raven in the stomach when she'd tried to explain what was happening. Better leave him on his own and let him come back when he was ready. They already had to deal with enough on their own.

Despite her questionable loyalties, Mystique's presence was settling and the rest of the flight, while rocky, remained uneventful. They landed with minimal damage, and he'd finally been able to bury his own issues once more to busy himself with Erik and Charles. Charles offered him a melancholy smile that somewhat assured him Onslaught wasn't still around. The telepath had walked to the infirmary on his own power and hoisted himself onto a bed while Mystique carried her former leader slung over her shoulder. She made a beeline to another cot and threw Magneto onto it with a hard thunk.

"Raven," Hank admonished.

"What? He tried to kill both of us. If he wakes up with a headache, we can call it karma."

A noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort came from Charles.

"If he wakes up at all," Hank said with a bit more bite than he intended. It wasn't that he had strong feelings for Magneto's well-being. Far from it, actually. Hank still felt the overwhelming urge to strangle him, despite the fact that he'd been able to talk to him civilly when Onslaught was attacking. More than anything, he didn't want Charles to have Erik Lehnsherr's death on his conscience, even though his mentor seemed less than bothered by the thought of it for the time being.

So, it was with great effort that he was forcing himself not to murder the man sprawled out on the bed. This person wasn't Magneto. He was a patient. Patients, Hank could deal with.

Mystique seemed reasonably admonished, though if the look she shared with Charles was anything to go by, it seemed that, like Hank, it was more at the implication that Charles might be the reason behind Magneto's hypothetical coma than the coma itself. She helped him get the man's armor off and arrange him on the bed. Out of the corner of his eye, Hank could see Charles watching his legs swing back and forth.

"I need some clothes for him and maybe some other sheets. Can you get them? The sheets should be in the linen closet on the first floor. There are sweatpants and t-shirts in one of the bedroom closets."

"Sure. I'll be back in a few minutes." She walked to Charles waited until he acknowledged her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Raven. Just tired."

Hank was positive she bought it just about as easily as he did, which was to say not at all. They knew Charles Xavier better than most people knew their families. There was nothing to be done about it, though, and she was forced to leave the room to complete her task without a real answer.

He worked in silence for a few blessed minutes, though he could feel Charles' gaze on his back a few times. Machines needed to be turned on and monitors hooked up. After all that, he expected more than the readings he got. Magneto was alive, but showed no signs of consciousness. The steady beep of the heart monitor indicated he wasn't over-stressed, his breathing was normal, as was his blood pressure. Then again, it hadn't been physical trauma that had incapacitated him, had it? He needed a proper brain scan, preferably along with a scan from before the trauma to compare it to. Without a baseline, he could tell when there were changes from his present, but not much else.

"What did you do to him?" Hank asked without looking up from his patient.

The creaking the bed had been making in time with Charles' swinging legs stopped. "It's rather…complicated."

"You've remarked on my intelligence twice over the past 24 hours. Explain it to me."

It looked like Charles was trying to read him without his telepathy. For a moment, a wave a panic struck Hank; perhaps the serum wasn't working. Maybe Onslaught was coming back-

Then Charles let out a frustrated huff and the clinch in his chest released. It returned again when he saw Charles slump in what would best be described as despair. That Charles wanted his telepathy back should be a blessing, yet after the events of the past few days, it seemed more a curse. What if he refused to take the serum? Could they really let him go off it knowing Onslaught was lurking in the background? More importantly, could they let him go off it knowing he might allow Onslaught to run free? Charles was the only one who knew how much truth was behind Onslaught's insistence that Charles allowed him control. They didn't know enough about the situation at hand to know whether Charles could be trusted with his telepathy yet.

Hank shook himself from the thought. Could he force a man, his friend, to repress his mutation? Could he force Charles to take a drug he didn't want to take just to keep Onslaught at bay? Or would rejecting Charles' mutation alienate him like it had Raven, or worse send him down the path Magneto had taken?

"I don't need my telepathy to know that you're angry with me. Understandably angry. You deserve better than this. All of this," he finished with a glance around the understocked infirmary.

He'd never been one to hold grudges, but he found that he couldn't not after the events that had transpired. Betrayal was a strong emotion, after all. Erik, the man who had helped train him, a man who supposedly valued mutant lives, had tried to murder him. Charles, his mentor and friend, had threatened to mind-wipe him and had, without a doubt, used telepathy as a weapon against him at some point during his Onslaught-controlled episode. Raven hadn't done anything yet, but heaven knows what would happen once Charles was settled.

"Just tell me what you did to him and whether he'll recover."

"He will be fine," Charles said, then paused. "Probably. He'll probably be fine. I should say he will most certainly wake up and we should know whether there's any lasting damage then. For the time being, there's nothing to do but wait. I'm exhausted. If you don't mind, I'd like to rest."

The fact that the dismissal was so blatant only confirmed that Charles wasn't lying about his exhaustion, as if the purple rings under his eyes weren't enough. They needed answers, but those answers would have to wait. If Charles passed out halfway through giving them, it wouldn't do much good.

"Fine. I'll wake you when the next batch of serum is done."

If he thought it would get a reaction from Charles, he was sorely mistaken. Anything, a "great I can't wait," a hesitation, even a flicker of disappointment, would've at least given him an idea of where Charles' mind was. Yet he maintained a neutral mask that, in itself, was far more disconcerting than any other reaction could have been. Charles exuded emotion, even if it was cynical dismissal.

As Charles lay down, Hank turned back to the work bench to gather the necessary supplies to make the serum.

"Hank?"

Hank turned back to find Charles looking at him, eyes glassy with fatigue.

"I am truly sorry for what is happening."

"I know, Charles. We'll…we'll figure it out, okay? Just get some rest."

Charles nodded and drifted off. Hank put a hand over his face. He needed to sleep too. But the serum was a priority he couldn't put off.

Except that Raven hadn't come back yet and it had been far too long for her to have been searching. Magneto and Charles were stable for the time being. He'd have to go out and make sure she hadn't bolted.

He found her ten minutes later sitting on her knees on the floor of Charles' soiled bedroom. She was surrounded by empty syringes she'd apparently ransacked the room to confiscate, though the room had looked ransacked to begin with so there was no way to tell how much of it was her doing. She held one in her hand, twisting it slowly as if her study of it could tell her exactly what its presence meant.

"So, you didn't find the sweatpants, I take it?"

Raven jerked out of her revere. Before she could get up, Hank approached and sat down on a pile of blankets next to her. Angry tears were in her eyes, though she looked more confused than anything else.

"What the hell happened here?"

"We hit a rough patch."

"A rough patch? Is that what you're calling this?" She picked up the rubber tube Charles used to tie off his arm for his injections and shook it. "My brother is a drug addict!"

"Addict is perhaps a strong term-"

The tube hit him across the face and fell to the floor like a limp noodle. The tears and confusion had morphed into fury. "Don't you dare try to talk to me like I don't have eyes." She picked up a handful of syringes. They clinked against each other as she dropped them back one by one, nine in all. "How could you let this happen?"

"No." Fury of his own was starting to bubble up. That's what he got for trying to be compassionate, right? Attacks and misdirected anger. He'd get the damn sheets and clothes himself.

He stormed out of the room. He made it to the linen closet before Raven caught up.

"What do you mean no? You let my brother become a drug addict."

Hank rounded on her. "I saved your brother's life! Do you know how difficult those first few months were? How long it took to recover from the mess you left us in? No, you don't. Because you made the selfish choice and disappeared off to who knows where with people who were trying to kill us."

"I needed to be away from him. There were things I wanted to do-"

"There were things all of us wanted to do. Do you think this is where I pictured myself, Raven? I was going to be a doctor. I was going to be at the cutting edge of biochemistry. I was going to help people. Don't get me wrong, I love Charles like a brother. I would've helped him regardless of my own circumstances. But you weren't the only one who wanted to go places. I watched everyone else walk away. I watched while the man who had so much hope for the future slipped away until all that was left was a cynical husk. The serum wasn't the perfect solution, but it kept him from completely shutting down."

"He was trying to control me," she said, smaller now, as if all of this information was new to her. Perhaps it was. Perhaps she had separated herself from them so completely that she didn't see the damage that had been left in her wake. Did it make it better or worse that she obviously hadn't checked in on them once since she left?

"So you didn't talk to him for a decade? There were no other options? You couldn't have stayed with your brother to make sure the bullet wound he had in his back wasn't going to kill him? You couldn't have done whatever the hell it is you've been doing since Magneto was arrested while also giving us a call every month or two? Or dropping by on occasion? Perhaps try to figure out why he was doing what he was doing rather than running away?

"You don't get to be the victim. You don't get to have an opinion on the decisions I had to make. You had a choice. You made the selfish one. Now you get to deal with the consequences. I did what I had to, but he wasn't the only one who could've used a support network. Once Alex left...we only had each other. And a broken man being supporting a slightly less broken man wasn't what either of us needed or deserved."

Raven stood, mouth opening and closing without sound. Good. He might regret his words her later, but he needed it now and, quite frankly, he was ready to be the selfish one for once.

Raven stopped gaping, looking more vulnerable than she had when she was lying on the conference table after the attack in Paris. "I'm his sister."

Hank shook his head. "When it suits you to be. But not when he needed you."

With that, he grabbed a few sheets and headed to the bedroom where he knew the extra clothes were. Before he got there, he stopped, turned back to Raven who had made no move to follow him.

"Eight months. It took us eight months to fix what you broke. And our reward was to watch it all fall apart again."

With that, he left the shapeshifter standing in the hallway. He had more serum to make and he didn't have time or the emotional stability to deal with Charles' sister right now.

* * *

No sooner had Charles closed his eyes than he was charging down the halls of his created mindscape. Why his mind even had halls he didn't know. Maybe his consciousness needed something resembling the real world in order to interact with his deeper mental processes and memories. His past flew by him in flashes and whispers. A few days ago, he would've gotten caught up in them, trapped like a fly in a spider's web until they consumed him.

Now, he had a mission.

Or at least the beginnings of one spinning itself together.

The whispers stopped as he approached the familiar cage deep in the confines of his mind. The door swung open to let him pass with the flick of his head, and he did so without breaking his pace.

Onslaught lay curled on the floor, unconscious or at least deeply asleep. So this was what the serum did to him. Charles hovered before squatting down beside the entity. He'd like to say he'd wondered what had happened to Onslaught while he was taking the serum. He hadn't. He'd just been glad to rid himself of the proverbial devil on his shoulder. Onslaught had never truly been gone though. The serum silenced him, rendered him unconscious, but his presence never diminished. No matter what Charles did, who he tried to be, what drugs he put in his body, Onslaught would always there. It was time he started accepting that fact.

From his squatted position, he leaned over and tapped Onslaught's face.

"Come on, wake up."

Nothing. What did he expect, though, really? Onslaught's lack of consciousness was just another manifestation of what he was feeling in his head. Now that he'd been off the serum for the first time in years and experienced his powers at their full potential, he could feel its effects more keenly. His telepathy was a part of him inseparable from the rest. The serum didn't just block his telepathy; it dulled his ability to think. In trying to rid himself of his pain, he had been poisoning his mind and body. His future self had been right. Only by accepting his pain could he become the person he was meant to be. His pain made him stronger.

After seven more tries, Onslaught was blinking up at him. It took several more attempts to rouse to the point where he would respond without his eyes glazing over.

"How did we fare?" Onslaught slurred.

"Raven injected me with the serum. We're back at Westchester."

"We being?"

"Hank, Raven, and Magneto."

Onslaught blinked hard. "Erik-"

"-is neutralized for the time being."

"We didn't kill him. I thought-"

"So did I. Give it time."

"McCoy is making more serum?"

"He is."

Even in his weakened state, the room got colder with Onslaught's thinning frown. "You would allow him to suppress me again? After all we've done together, you would let them lock me away? What will you do then? Can you go back to being the washed up genetics PhD? Play house with McCoy and Raven while Erik goes gallivanting about doing who knows what? Because he will not be held back, not without a leash to keep him. McCoy will leave. Even if he doesn't, his trust in us is broken. And Raven will not stay either. With our powers at their lowest, you can still sense it in her…the desire for revenge. To leave her family to go on a quest to avenge her mutant brothers and sisters while her own brother rots alone in a house that holds nothing but bad memories."

_A fist_

_A fire_

_A cemetery_

_Two stoic men from the armed forces standing at the front door_

Charles shook his head at the unbidden barrage of images.

"Family was never our strong suit," Onslaught continued. "Even when we make one ourselves…"

_Raven as a child in the kitchen_

_Celebrating his graduation with her_

_Finding Erik_

_Dinner with Sean, Alex, Hank, Erik, Raven, and Moira_

"…it never turns out the way we planned."

_Erik and Raven disappearing with the Brotherhood_

_Moira walking away blank-faced_

_Headlines about Magneto assassinating President Kennedy_

_Sean disappearing_

_Raven never returning_

_The school closing_

_Hank withdrawing into himself_

_Alex leaving for the war_

Charles tore himself from the memories with a choked off gasp. Onslaught didn't seem to notice aroused any sort of response and continued on unaffected. Fascinating. If Onslaught was able to pull memories of their past forward, then it meant his strength, and with it their telepathy, was returning far faster than anticipated. Perhaps they had more time than he'd thought…

"You'll become a child's campfire story," Onslaught was saying, "the old recluse in the dilapidated mansion. Fear and abandonment. That is the future that awaits you."

"Are you finished?"

"Am I-" Onslaught gave him a hard stare. "You aren't here to make sure I stay in my cage like a good alter ego?"

Charles raised an eyebrow. "Why would I be trying to wake you if I were here to imprison you again?"

Onslaught gaped. "Then I take it you have a plan?"

"I do. Do you not?"

"Don't judge me too harshly. I'm convalescing. Give me a few moments at least."

"Do you need them? We're recovering more quickly this time."

Onslaught paused, eyes squinting into the distance before he pulled back into himself with a jolt. "We are," he said, astonished. "Why? The use of our powers?"

Charles shrugged. "Mostly likely. We used our telepathy extensively and manifested a secondary mutation. My best guess is that our body is metabolizing the serum faster as a result."

"Does McCoy know?"

"He doesn't from what I can tell."

"So we-"

"Can stop them from giving us more serum? Yes."

Onslaught was staring at him not unlike Raven had when they were children and Onslaught had first appeared…like Charles was someone he knew but didn't recognize. "When you said you weren't going to let others dictate our life, you meant it. What's your plan?"

"I want my family back."

Onslaught pushed himself up, wincing, and set himself so he was slumped against the wall. "Tell me how."

* * *

Back in the experimental stages of the serum's creation, Hank had found it was ideal to let the serum rest for an hour so the bonds between the compounds could settle. With Charles still passed out and Magneto showing no signs of change, perhaps now was the time to get some answers about what exactly they were dealing with from the house's other occupant, assuming she wasn't still angry about their last conversation.

The rustling of curtains and a cold draft drew him back to Charles' mess of a room. Or what used to be his mess of a room. The room was back in order now. Books were stacked neatly on a desk he had forgotten existed. The floor was visible for the first time in ages and the bed was made with crisp white linens and a comforter that he'd seen hidden away on a shelf in Raven's closet. There was no sign of the syringes that had littered the floor. It was almost as if a depressed addict hadn't inhabited the room for years.

Raven stood brilliant blue at the open window staring out at the late afternoon sun.

"I thought I'd let the room air out. It was too stale. Even if Charles decides to use a different room, which I wouldn't blame him for…at least this one is clear of any reminders of his…"

"Thank you, Raven. I'm sure he'll appreciate it."

"He's still asleep?"

"He output a lot of energy. It's not surprising that he exhausted himself. I'm more surprised he didn't pass out on the plane, to be honest."

A gust of frigid air blew through the window. Raven shivered but made no move to change positions. The air reminded her of where she was, kept her in the present instead of focusing on the past. Or the future.

"Why don't we grab something to eat? It's been a long day and…you look cold."

"What, am I turning blue?" she said with a half-hearted smile. Hank returned it with the same melancholy undertones.

The walk to the kitchen was silent. They found peanut butter and jelly and some bread that miraculously wasn't moldy. Six minutes and a wiped-clean kitchen island later, they were sat across from one another.

Hank was avoiding her gaze. After all these years, he still couldn't handle a frank face-to-face conversation with her. At least some things never changed. It wasn't as if she was clueless as to what he'd sought her out for. If something was up with Charles, he would've opened with it. If Erik had woken, well, half the house would probably be caved in. After a glance from her sent his eyes skittering to the window yet again, she dropped her half-eaten sandwich, jelly oozing out onto the plate.

"You want to ask about Onslaught."

Hank placed his own sandwich down and leaned forward. "What is he? I've pieced together bits. He's a suppressed part of Charles manifesting through his telepathy. A sort of opposite version of him. Where Charles is calm and compassionate, Onslaught is reactionary and doesn't hesitate to threaten."

"He doesn't hesitate to do more than threaten," Raven said, more to herself than Hank. Hank leaned back as if sensing she needed space for what she was about to tell. She was glad for it. It wasn't an experience she enjoyed recalling. It had been years since she'd allowed herself to consciously acknowledge Onslaught existed at all.

"Onslaught is all the things Charles won't let himself be. It's like…Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde except with the ability to mind control anyone within five states of him."

"And the telekinesis?"

Oh, yes, the telekinesis. How could she have forgotten the image of her brother taking apart a Sentinel one piece at a time?

"That was new. He only ever used telepathy before, but he was young."

"How young?"

"Young enough that he didn't understand the responsibility of telepathy yet. Or proportionate response."

* * *

_Raven had been with Charles three years when things went amiss. She'd seen boys become teenagers before while she was living on the street. Their voices got deeper, and they got taller and started acting weird. All those things happened to Charles, but there was something else too. He started fighting back. And then he started fighting first. It was so unlike the boy she knew and had grown to love like the family she'd never had. It scared her._

_"Charles, that's the fourth time this week you've made a teacher think you turned in your homework when you didn't," Raven said as they waited for the driver to come pick them up after school._

_Charles' barely-broadening shoulders shifted his uniform jacket as he shrugged. "I know it all. Why do I need to write it down? It's child's play. I should be doing the work the boys in high school are doing."_

_"But then you'd leave me," Raven pouted._

_He put a hand on her shoulder. "Oh, Raven, I'd never leave you."_

_If she'd learned anything from her time before Charles had found her, it was that anyone who said they wouldn't leave you was lying._

_Still, she returned his grin with a small smile of her own. The conversation would've ended there if he hadn't run his hand down her arm to her elbow. She couldn't stop the flinch and hiss as he hit the wound she'd managed to keep hidden under her sweater._

_Charles' eyes darkened. "What? What is it? Are you hurt?"_

_"It's nothing," she said, trying to draw back. He wouldn't let go of her wrist._

_"It's not nothing," he replied, pulling at her sweater._

_She could feel him in her head, rustling around, trying to find out what had happened. He tugged the sleeve of the sweater up, careful to avoid touching where he had when she'd flinched, and got a good look at her arm. She couldn't help but replay the memory, knowing full well Charles would see it as well. Sure enough, his gaze snapped to her face._

_"Someone pushed you."_

_"It wasn't a big deal."_

_"They pushed you down and laughed. They threatened you with violence if you told anyone." He frowned. "It's not the first time either. They've kicked you and- and abused you. And you've kept it hidden."_

_"It's not a big deal! It happens all the time!"_

_It did happen all the time. School bullies were at least better than having to fight grown adults for food. Really, this was a far better problem to have than any other she'd dealt with so far. But Charles wouldn't see it that way. Charles didn't understand._

_"You're damn right I don't understand. Is that why you didn't tell me? You thought I would overreact to my sister being attacked by her classmates?"_

_"I wasn't attacked. And I didn't tell you because you've been weird lately."_

_Charles stared her in the eye for what was easily the longest three seconds of her life. Then, he pulled her sweater sleeve back down and stood upright again. He didn't say another word, though his jaw was clinched hard enough that it would probably be sore later._

_"Charles, are you okay? I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I didn't think it was a big deal."_

_"It's fine, Raven. You did nothing wrong. Don't worry."_

_When they got home, they put disinfectant on her wounds (she had a couple of other scrapes from her fall) and bandaged them. She didn't think much of it for the next day or so._

_That is, until she'd gotten a mysterious telepathic message from Charles to come meet him at the playground instead of their usual corner to wait for their driver. When she got there, there was already a ruckus going on. She ran over to Charles, who was reclined on a picnic table off to the side. Once she was there, she could see what the ruckus was._

_It was the group of kids who had been picking on her. The one who had pushed her down was being pummeled by a bigger kid, one she vaguely recognized from Charles' grade. The rest of the group cowered to the side. One tried to pull off the bigger boy and got an elbow to the eye for his trouble. The boy who had pushed her down had a bloody face. He was crying, begging the other boy to stop. The pleas fell on deaf ears for, when she got a good look at him, Raven could see the bigger boy was blank-faced and unblinking._

_Her eyes shot back to Charles. What she hadn't noticed before was that his head was leaning on one hand so that his fingers were surreptitiously pressed into his temple. His full focus was on the brawl going on in front of him. He was…he was smirking._

_The boy who had pushed Raven down stopped moving._

_The bigger boy kept attacking._

_"Charles!" Raven shouted. "Charles, stop it!"_

_She grabbed his wrist and pulled the hand supporting his head. He jolted and caught himself before he could tip to the side. For a moment, his wrathful gaze turned on her. She stumbled back, would've fallen if Charles hadn't jumped towards her. She screamed as he grabbed her._

_"No, no, Raven, it's just me."_

_When she looked, the fury from before was gone, replaced with concern. She ripped herself from his grasp._

_"What were you doing?! You were- you were making them do that!"_

_"He needed to be punished."_

_"Not like that! He should've gotten detention or suspension. You were-"_

_She broke off to make sure distracting Charles had stopped the fight. The bigger boy was staring at bloody hands in confused horror. The rest of the group had gathered around their fallen comrade, who still wasn't moving. One of them ran off, probably to go get help._

_She turned back to Charles. "Why?"_

_"They never get punished. Peter had been bullying for years. He broke one of my classmate's arms last year. He's responsible for more than a few mental and physical scars on others. His father is a donor to the school though, so nothing ever comes of it. As for the one who's been bullying you-"_

_"Wes."_

_"What?"_

_"His name is Wes."_

_"As for Wes, then," he said with added disdain, "he's just like Peter. He needed to see what it was like to be on the other side. Walk a mile in your shoes."_

_"Just because they aren't good people doesn't mean you get to punish them."_

_"Why not? I've been given this power. Why shouldn't I use it?"_

_"Because you're a good guy. You save people. If you hurt others to get your way, you're no better than them," she said, tears she hadn't felt building streaming down her face. "I don't want you to be like them. Please, Charles, this isn't you."_

_"You're a child-"_

_"I'm your sister! And I'm not that much younger than you. I haven't spent one day apart from you since you found me. I know you. I'm not stupid. Something is wrong with you. I'm afraid of you."_

_Charles frowned, as if he hadn't even considered the possibility that what he was doing was wrong. "I…there's a voice. I thought it was me, but…"_

_He looked up at her, fearful for the first time. "Let's go home."_

* * *

Raven poked at her soggy sandwich. Better to look at it than see Hank's reaction.

"He decided to go into his head and try to find the voice he'd been listening to. He was scared, so he asked me to come with him. We'd tried stuff like that before, but only for little things like him showing me something he'd seen on a field trip or me showing him what I'd learned about in school. I'd thought it would be an adventure trying to find whatever it was bothering Charles. Funny thing was, it wasn't even that hard to find Him. A perfect replication of Charles except burning like a freaking sun. I wasn't that impressed as a kid, but looking back and knowing what it was, it's pretty impressive that a thirteen year old could entrap his own evil mental twin. Once he'd recognized something was off, it apparently wasn't too difficult for him to pin down what it was and box it off. It…Onslaught…hadn't been expecting it. He was furious. I could feel it. And Charles was scared. It was a part of him he hadn't even known he existed. Neither of us did. He'd basically adopted me. To me, he was a saint. Onslaught tried to convince Charles to let him out. He was manipulative. I don't know what Charles would've done if I wasn't there, but I guess he couldn't let himself give in in front of me. The look Onslaught gave me…"

Raven shook her head of the image of thirteen-year-old Charles looking like he wanted to tear her limb from limb. She'd forgotten most of the arguments he'd given for why Charles should accept him, but, all these years later, she still remembered his last words.

_"The world can be exactly as we wish it to be."_

_She'd grabbed Charles' hand. Charles had looked at her, stood a little taller, then turned back to Onslaught._

_"No."_

"We left Onslaught screaming behind the bars of his cage. Charles spent the rest of the night shaking and crying on my bed. In the morning, he'd calmed down and we never talked about it again."

There was an air of hesitation, then Hank's tentative hand was on hers, bringing her back to the present. Apparently, he was willing to put aside his anger at her from earlier. He'd always been the better of them.

"Peter got expelled from school. Even his daddy's money couldn't defend him. Not when he put a kid two grades below him into a coma. Wes woke up eventually. He missed too much school recovering and got held back a grade. I didn't see him again after that. I don't think Charles ever forgave himself.

"I never said and he never asked, but when I told him to stay out of my head a few years later, I think we both knew it was because of what had happened that night. I'd thought that was the end of it. If I'd known Onslaught was still there, screaming at him or whispering in his ear or whatever the hell he was doing that was torturing my brother day in and day out, I would have-"

What would she have done? What could she have possibly offered?

"He never said. You couldn't have known," Hank said as he squeezed her hand again.

That. That was what she could have done. It would've been so simple. All Charles needed was one person willing to hold his hand when he was struggling. "I could have supported him. I could've been an anchor or whatever it is telepaths need. I could've not left him on a beach with a bullet in his back. God, Hank, you were right. I'm a terrible sister."

Hank was silent for a moment but never let her hand go. "You've made some bad choices. That's not a permanent state though. Make up for the time you missed. Be the sister he needs you to be."

"But what about Trask? He and his people still need to pay for what they've done."

"They'll still be there. He needs you right now. And we still have to figure out what to do with Magneto."

She hadn't been planning on staying for long. Just long enough to see that Charles was alright. Except Charles wasn't going to be alright for a long time. He hadn't been alright for ages, apparently, she just hadn't known about it.

She gave Hank a smile and a purposeful nod. Decision made. She'd take some time, help Hank deal with Onslaught and Erik (as if she would've left him alone to deal with them anyway), then, once Charles was settled again, she could continue her mission.

Getting Charles back on track could prove challenging, but it was doable. She'd brought him back from Onslaught before. She'd just have to do it again.

* * *

"I'm impressed," Onslaught said when Charles finished. "You didn't even need me."

"On the contrary," Charles said. "I've spent so much time and effort fighting a part of myself that I never fought for anything _for_ myself. Working together, on the other hand…"

Charles had to fight the urge to stand up and pace. His mind felt different. There was a giddiness that had been building since he got off the plane, an itch to do something that hadn't been there before. It continued to grow, just as his telepathy and Onslaught's strength. He certainly wasn't going to waste it waiting around for Hank to make more serum and Raven to walk out the door and Erik to wake up and wreak havoc on the world. Onslaught's posture was tense in a way that told Charles he felt it as well, though perhaps not as keenly. He was still comparatively weak, after all.

For the first time, he offered Onslaught a genuine smile. "The world can be exactly as we wish it to be."

Realization, then a dangerous grin crept onto Onslaught's face.

"Yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Movie references: A few references to the events in First Class (finding Raven, the time at the mansion). Wolverine almost stabbing Mystique in the stomach is also a reference to him stabbing her in the 2000 movie.
> 
> Comic references: Hank saying he wanted to be a biochemist is a reference to his degree in biochemistry from the comics. The fist, fire, cemetery, and men from the armed forces are all references to Charles’ relation to the Markos. Cain abused him (fist), Kurt dragged Charles and Cain from a lab fire (fire) that ended up killing him (cemetery), Cain was supposedly killed in the Korean War (men from armed forces coming to give the news). In the comics, Charles is with Cain when that happens, but I went with him not being there and being given the news that Cain had been killed in action for the purposes of this story. There’s another thing from the last chapter that’s vaguely referenced in this chapter that’s also a comic reference, but since I haven’t explicitly said it yet I’m going to wait to list it. Author note cliffhanger! 
> 
> Reviews are awesome!


	8. You and me and the devil makes three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, and Gillian Welch's “Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby"
> 
> Hello, friends! I have returned…with a comparatively short chapter. But still, it’s a chapter. Huzzah!

There was no shooting back to consciousness. No dramatic gasp accompanied by bolting upright, tossing blankets or whatever happened to be covering him aside. It was more a slow realization that he was floating and then he wasn't anymore.

Erik felt raw. He blinked once. Twice. His surroundings coalesced from a mass of colors into sharper lines. Four walls, a television set, tacky curtains, nondescript paintings on the wall. He was back in the hotel room he'd had what turned out to be his first interaction with Onslaught in. The only difference was that this time sunlight instead of moonlight was streaming through the open curtains.

The raw feeling was no doubt the result of his skirmish with Onslaught. His head had felt like it was simultaneously imploding and exploding. There had been a pull, an almost physical ripping sensation, then nothing until the hotel room.

Onslaught had done something to him. He felt…not wrong, but off-kilter. Like something was missing.

He moved to sit up, head giving a dull twinge. He was in the same bed where he'd spent the previous night. And, just like the previous night, he realized he wasn't alone. Charles, once again, stood by the television. Erik shot to his feet, swayed, and sat back down heavily.

"You might experience some lightheadedness, I'm afraid," Charles said. "I expect that's why I don't have a knife hurdling toward my shoulder?"

"Do I need to defend myself?"

A huff of laughter, as humorless as the smile it replaced. Right. They had just attacked each other with giant robots created to with the sole intention of policing and murdering mutants. He should probably be defending himself.

"I think we've done enough damage for the time being," Charles said with an absent touch to his throat.

Erik felt a wave of _not quite right_ again and put his hand to his head as he shook it. Charles looked on. He felt like an insect trapped in a cup under the careful watch of a curious captor.

The wave eventually receded enough that he could lift his head again. "What did you do to me?"

"That's a rather complicated question-"

"You took it from me." He didn't know what it was, but he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was gone.

Charles stood gaping for a moment, like he'd had a whole speech planned and Erik had stolen his thunder by catching on before Charles had expected him to. Actually, that was probably exactly what he had done, judging by the telepath's now pursed lips and the annoyance flaring in his eyes.

"You always had a way of simplifying matters. In that case, yes, I took it from you. If it's any consolation, I didn't mean to. Raven stuck me with that damn serum before I had a chance to get all of you back in your own head."

Perhaps…he understood less of what had happened than he'd thought. What he could piece together wasn't promising though. Everything he'd feared about Charles' powers was coming to pass. The telepath had gone into his head, scrambled who knows what, made Erik different.

"Not different. You're still the same person. I didn't change anything about you. I just…" Charles heaved a sigh and moved to sit on the second bed across from Erik, springs squeaking at his weight.

"Now, keep in mind that this was never my intention."

"Of course not. Your intention was to kill me."

The barest trace of a smile, but without a hint of remorse accompanying it. "Be that as it may, my reaction was automatic. A defense mechanism. After all you'd done, especially what you did to Logan-"

"Do not blame me for your actions."

"And where would I have picked that habit up from, I wonder?"

"I don't blame others for my-"

"Of course you do. First it was Shaw. He killed your mother; he made you who you were. You couldn't possibly do anything but get your revenge on him, let him control your every move for over almost two decades. Then it was the humans, a more abstract enemy, one that you could use for a long time, conceivably for the rest of your days. You blame them all of them for the plight of mutants as a whole, paint them with a broad brush rather than seeing the shading and nuance in the picture. You refuse to acknowledge when you might be acting prematurely and, when you do act, it is so far out of proportion that even Nixon with his paranoia can't hold a candle to it."

Leaning forward, Charles put his hand on Erik's cheek. His expression softened, far closer to the man he'd recruited mutants with than the one he'd met on the White House lawn. The shift in dynamic was so jarring that Erik didn't move out of reach.

"Did it drive you mad?" he asked, eyes searching Erik's. "Ten years in a cell, nothing to do but meditate and plot. Is that why your world is more warped now than it was before?"

Charles continued bending forward until their faces were inches apart. "Look at us. Both irrevocably broken by our own plans, yet unable to escape them. What a pair we make."

"What have you done, Charles?" Erik asked, far more brokenly than he intended. It was the proximity, he decided. To have Charles so close…the man had tried to kill him, but…

Charles leaned back, breaking whatever spell had come over them. "In my desperation, it seems I pulled your consciousness from your body," he said. The scientific tone was back, the one Erik imagined he would use while explaining powers to students. "It had nowhere to go but into my head. I realized my mistake almost immediately and tried to correct it, but it's rather difficult to transfer all of someone's consciousness back and then Raven hit me with the serum. Most of you made it back. But it would appear that a part of you remained with me. Whatever it was in you that drove you so hard to achieve your goals…that stayed. It's ours now. We will use it in your stead."

"Ours?"

"Don't play dumb, Magneto. It doesn't become you."

Perhaps his time in solitary confinement had colored his perception more than he thought. He wasn't asking the right questions; he was focusing too much on himself when the answers he sought lay elsewhere.

"What happened to you, old friend?"

The traces of friendship that had flickered to the surface moments ago dissipated, leaving behind a combination of the broken man from the plane and the vengeful creature he'd fought hours ago. "I learned that having a family and keeping them are two very different things. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for them, and sometimes they aren't as willing as you'd hoped they would be to make those same sacrifices for you." Charles' distant gaze snapped back to Erik. "You had your chance to pursue your goals. You got yourself thrown in jail, your vision left unrealized. It is long time that I have the chance to pursue mine. And, for the first time since you and my sister left me bleeding and paralyzed on that godforsaken beach, I feel like I can."

It wasn't the answer he'd been hoping for, mostly because it wasn't an answer at all. Erik had far too many questions to deal with Charles' misdirection.

"You could have killed me any time," Erik said. "I didn't have the helmet. I'm unprotected now. You seemed to have every intention of murdering me where I stood. Why take my consciousness from me, but let me live? Why come talk to me and not finish the job?"

Annoyance flared through whatever telepathic bond linked them. Curious. Perhaps Charles himself didn't quite know the answer. Or he knew the answer and didn't like it.

Charles stood. "You should tread carefully in the future. Whatever path you choose to pursue, I will know. Next time, the outcome may be different."

Erik's head was spinning. It was like talking to two different people. Perhaps he was. It was taking substantial mental energy just to try to keep up with Charles' side of the conversation. "But there will be a next time."

"If Raven hadn't injected me with the serum when she did, I don't know whether that would be true. But as it stands, you have been given a second chance. We both have. I will most certainly be taking advantage of that chance. I suggest you do as well."

"And what will you be using your second chance to pursue, Charles? Your school? Or finding new ways to suppress the powers we've been given? Perfecting your precious serum so you can walk again?"

Something about the serum tugged at his mind. There was something he wasn't putting together…

Charles smirked. "Walking is overrated when your mind can walk for you."

The niggling thought finally pushed its way to the surface. "The serum. Raven injected you with the serum that suppresses your power?"

"The very same."

"But if Raven gave you the serum then how are you in my head? Better yet, why can't you give me back what you took?"

"Because I have a better use for it than you. You should rest, Magneto." Erik's eyelids immediately drooped. He fought. He wouldn't be controlled again. Charles continued, either unaware or undisturbed by Erik's struggles. "You're recovering from quite the traumatic experience. You'll want to be prepared for the decisions you'll have to make when you wake."

Then he disappeared, a faint flare of orange drifting in his wake, leaving Erik to collapse across the bed and surrender back to the darkness.

* * *

When Erik awoke next time, it was in stages. First came touch…stiff linens and clothing that was most certainly not the armor he'd been in when last we was aware. Next was smell…the faint scent of antiseptic over a layer of musty disuse. Then hearing…the steady beeping and whirring of machines and what sounded like a heating system accompanied unexpectedly by the heavy breathing that usually came with deep sleep. Finally, his eyes blinked open. His sight confirmed the presence of the machines he'd heard. He was hooked up to several, no doubt monitoring his vital signs and, if the itching on his forehead was anything to go by, his brain waves. He moved the linen aside with a clumsy hand to find a pair of old sweatpants had replaced his slacks. Dropping the sheet back, he looked around. There were three other beds in the windowless room, all empty. Half the room was taken up by science equipment, some coated with a layer of dust, others freshly used.

Not a hospital.

Westchester.

He was back at Westchester in the infirmary they'd created in Charles' childhood home.

The culprit of the heavy breathing, as it turned out, was Hank. The mutant was slumped over one of the lab benches. Several empty test tubes lay strewn across the table. The boy had been working on something.

The door to the infirmary swung open with so much force that it banged into the back wall. Raven stood there in all her blue glory staring at the empty bed to Erik's right.

Almost as a side thought, she glanced at Erik.

"Shit."

Before he could do anything more than blink back blearily, she stumbled over to Hank and started shaking him.

"Hank, Hank, wake up. Where's Charles?"

Hank blinked a few times and pushed himself to an upright position. Raven put a hand on his shoulder to steady his swaying form.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm- I don't know. I'm dizzy. What happened?"

"I don't know. I was upstairs trying to go through some of the closed up rooms, then I woke up in my old bedroom. I lost ten hours. Where's Charles?"

Hank shot to his feet, Raven stumbling under his weight when he failed to find his balance, and jerked to face the bed to Erik's right.

"He's gone."

"I noticed."

Erik frowned. Something was off about Hank. His gaze skittered around the room like he couldn't focus. They finally fell on Erik.

"Magneto-"

"Is weak as a kitten right now and we have other problems to handle first."

Erik felt he probably should defend his honor, but his push on the metal in the room barely tipped over an unused IV pole, and the groan the followed probably didn't make his case.

"Charles isn't anywhere in the house?"

"Not as far as I can tell. I haven't done an extensive search-"

"There aren't any wheelchairs in the house that aren't in storage," Erik said. His offensive powers might be disturbingly out of reach for the time being, but his sensory abilities were unaffected.

"So sometime in the last ten hours, Charles disappeared from the house," Raven recapped. "What's the last thing you remember, Hank?"

"I was making the serum and-"

He glanced down at the work bench again. The test tubes clinked as he pushed them aside, eyes falling on a single piece of paper Erik couldn't fully see. A myriad of emotions flashed over his face, most prominently fear and betrayal. Raven followed his gaze, brow furrowing. When she picked up the paper, Erik could see what was written. It wasn't much, but he recognized Charles' loopy-yet-messy scrawl.

_I'm sorry_

As Raven dropped the paper to her hip, Hank rushed to a wall of notebooks, flipping through one after another. The swipes at the pages grew more and more frantic until the last notebook was thrown across the room with a snarl. It hit with a resounding smack and fell to the floor, loose papers drifting like ash in its wake.

Hank dropped heavily onto the bench, head held in large hands that were tinged blue. Raven stood frozen. Erik could relate. Hank was a scientist. They'd seen him angry before, but only in battle. Outside of it, in the comfort of his lab, he'd always played the nerd Alex Summers had labeled him. Golden eyes wide, Raven stepped forward and put a hesitant hand on his shoulder.

"The serum is gone," Hank said, voice muffled by his hands. He flicked one of the fallen test tubes off the bench. "The batch I was making is destroyed. All of my notes are gone."

Raven squatted down so she and Hank were at the same level, hand never leaving his shoulder. "You can recreate it. You made it enough times that you must remember-"

"You don't understand. It's _gone_." When Hank looked up, he was the picture of devastation. "I can't remember any of it. When I try to, it's blank, empty." The emotion dropped until all that was left was roiling anger. "Like someone erased it from my mind."

Raven recoiled. "He…he wouldn't."

"Wouldn't he?"

Raven's devastation manifested differently than Hank's. Hanks' was colored by betrayal. Raven's tasted more like inevitability. It was the devastation of someone who had hoped against hope something wouldn't happen but wasn't quite so idealistic to truly believe it.

"He would. But…I didn't think he'd- where is he? If he's using his powers again, then he can't use his legs. He can't have gotten too far even with a wheelchair. We're in the middle of nowhere. The driveway isn't paved. He can't use a car."

"He can levitate," Erik said, easing himself up to lean against the wall at his back. Hank and Raven jerked towards him.

"That's right," Raven said. "Through, what, telekinesis? A secondary mutation?"

Erik shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. If he's as powerful as he was in Washington, he could easily have called someone to him as well. I doubt he'd have any qualms about controlling a stranger if he was willing to erase the serum from his most loyal friend's mind."

"And what about you, Magneto?" Hank growled. "What are we supposed to do with the man who tried to kill the pair of us?"

"It seems we have a common enemy now."

"Charles isn't the enemy." Raven sounded sure, but Erik didn't miss the way Hank looked away, down to the note of apology Raven still held.

"Then a common goal. Getting Charles back."

"How can we trust you?"

Erik offered his best sympathetic smile to Hank. "It would seem that Hank isn't the only threat Charles neutralized before he left."

* * *

Charles had somehow managed to turn Erik into a zombie. That was the only explanation for the way he'd been acting as far as Raven could see. He'd seemed okay that first day when he told them what Charles had done to him, how he'd pulled Erik's consciousness from him and somehow blocked all but the barest ability to sense metal around him.

In the days that followed, it became apparently that Charles had, in fact, taken something of Erik from him. Every morning, Erik would get up and go for a run. It seemed more out of habit than anything else, though. Mechanical. Nothing like the Erik she'd known before. When he got back, he'd disappear into the bowels of the mansion, only to reappear for meals and to report in a dull monotone what rooms seemed usable and which needed work. His face held a blank sort of resignation that Erik didn't even seem to realize he was expressing.

She'd forced him to spar with her on the fourth day. He was still the weapon he once was, albeit with limited access to his power. His mind was sharp and his body still knew how to defend itself. But every trace of the motivation that had driven him since well before she had met him had disappeared without a trace.

Without a trace in that they had no idea how to trace it. They knew exactly where it was. Or rather who it was with.

A bit of Erik in Charles' mind. The bit that happened to be the force behind everything Erik had done since his mother's murder. It wasn't the worst case scenario, but it was pretty damn close.

The part of Erik that Charles kept had driven Erik mad over the course of his life, the feeling that he had to act, to avenge someone, to oppose something.

And now that force was in Charles, an already unstable and ridiculously powerful telepath.

Fabulous.

The only bright side, as far as Raven could see, was that Onslaught hadn't murdered them all. No entities had declared the world was their oyster and everyone should bow down or perish.

Then again, Charles was always a bit less ostentatious when it came to his manipulations. Loud and proud when it came to his research and accomplishments, but when it came to making things happen?

No. Charles wouldn't announce his domination. Charles would take over the world quietly.

Which was why Raven had set aside her differences with an Erik Lehnsherr who appeared to be in the middle of an existential crisis and a Hank McCoy who had regressed into a seething mess of distrust in order to find him.

They hadn't had much luck as of yet. She had her talents at finding people and so did Erik, but if Charles didn't want to be found, they'd need their combined abilities and more to not only pin him to a location but also to capture him and talk him out of whatever he'd set his mind to.

In wasn't until two weeks after Charles' disappearance that they got their first real clue. It walked right up to the mansion and knocked on the front door four times. All three of them were in the library with a mess of wrinkled maps spread out on the floor around them.

The knocks echoed through the foyer. Raven's hand froze halfway to the shelf for a book when she turned to stare in the general direction of the door.

"Who knows we're here?" she asked.

Hank shrugged. "Sometimes we get door-to-door salesmen. They'll probably leave if we don't answer." The slightest uptick at the end of his sentence told her he was less than convinced of his own argument.

Another four knocks sounded, more persistent this time.

Erik sighed. "Seeing as how I'm a wanted fugitive and Hank is a bit blue, I believe Mystique may be our best option at getting rid of our visitor."

He was right. Stupid Erik and his stupid logic. She made for the door, transforming into her blonde form on the way.

"Can I help y-"

"Raven?"

Even if she hadn't seen Alex Summers in Vietnam, she'd have known he had gained military experience from the way he held himself. His blue eyes darted from Raven to Hank to Erik, who had come up behind her after hearing a familiar voice, widening just a tad when they fell on Hank's blue form then narrowing when they landed on Erik.

"Didn't he just try to murder a bunch of people?"

"Alex, what are you doing here?" Hank asked with a touch of incredulousness.

Alex frowned. "I was minding my own business trying to find a job in Boston. Someone asked to meet with me. I go to the meeting, recognize the person I'm meeting with, and next think I know I'm on a bus to Westchester. So I think the better question, Hank, is what the hell happened to Charles while I was gone?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comic references: Finally got around to explicitly identifying the reference I’ve been hinting at. In the comics, Charles pulls Erik’s consciousness into his mind after Erik tries to pull the adamantium from Logan’s body. The combination of Erik’s consciousness and Charles’ suppressed desires is what creates Onslaught.
> 
> Another chapter down! Less action-y, but needed plot stuff. Next chapter is going to start the plot not based directly on Days of Future Past events nor is it really based on comic events, which is new and different for me. I’m still trying to decide on how long I want this story to be, which is part of why updates are so far between. 
> 
> I haven’t gotten to edit as much as I like, so I may go back and do a re-edit when I have time. Just as a heads up.
> 
> Again, special thanks to those who reviewed and/or messaged me. I had a few really rough days dealing with real life and seeing how supportive readers could be was shockingly helpful. You guys are the best!!!


	9. Sometimes waiting is the hardest thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title comes from multiple sources.
> 
> Remember when I said I had an outline and hopefully this chapter wouldn’t take so long to get out? Funny story. First off, it doesn’t matter how much of an outline you have if you don’t have time to fill it out. Second, it also helps if you don’t lose the outline and have to go through all your old story notes to try to recreate it. Yay. On top of that, let's just say a challenging past 18 months mentally, emotionally, and physically. With everything that was happening, this story got put on a back burner. 
> 
> But here we are with another chapter! Maybe, just maybe, I can finish this story before I finish my dissertation. No promises, though. At the very least, I’m hopeful it won’t take me a year and a half to update again.
> 
> I’m still getting back into the swing of writing fanfic. I may come back and edit this later, but for now sorry if it reads differently than previous chapters.
> 
> Oh, and I’m not sure if it’s needed, but better safe than sorry: TRIGGER WARNING FOR SUICIDE (not any of the main characters)
> 
> Happy New Year!

The doorbell rang. Again.

Raven sighed from the kitchen where she and Alex had sandwiches piled on two plates.  


"Another one?"  


Alex placed the last sandwich on his stack. One of the halves at the top looked like it would topple but Alex held his hands out like negotiator approaching a hostage taker until it was clear the sandwiches weren't making any sudden moves.  


"Has to be," Alex replied, still warily eyeing the sandwiches.  


"I'll get the door if you take the sandwiches to the kids."  


"They aren’t exactly kids, Raven. They’re at least our age when we got here. Most of them are older.”  


“Not by much. Like I said, kids.”  


“I guarantee you complained back then about Charles calling you a kid.”  


Raven gave wistful smile. “Probably. Weird what hindsight does for you.”  


Alex walked around the island and gave her a pat on the shoulder. “So I get the door?”  


“Nice try,” she replied with an eye roll. “I’ll get the door. Just…entertain our guests for a while longer.”  


“Because dealing with six 16 to 19 year olds is definitely easier than dealing with whoever's at the door."  


"They like you better anyway. You’re a war hero."  


“I served one tour in Vietnam before they tried to ship me back to apparently get experimented on. I’m not exactly a war hero.”  


“Whatever. They like you. Deal with it. Like you said, you were in Vietnam. You can deal with six mutant teenagers. And don’t drop the sandwiches.”  


The bell rang again as she swished out the door.  


“No promises,” he shouted after her. He pushed the two plates into his hands. “You know, telekinesis would be way more helpful than chest lasers at the moment.”  


The half sandwich that had been threatening to fall finally made its break for freedom and plopped to the floor. He stared at it for a few seconds before stepping over it and 

out the door.  


“See? Telekinesis.”

* * *

Raven made her way to the front of the house, shifting to her blonde form along the way. Assuming the pattern held, this would be the third mutant to show up at their door this week, the seventh since Alex showed up a little over two weeks ago. There was just enough space between the arrivals to clear out rooms.  


It was clear Charles was sending them. Every one of them had mentioned the nice man in a wheelchair. Plus, Alex's description of his interaction with Charles had been...enlightening.  


* * *

~2 weeks earlier~  


_When Alex had gotten the phone call to meet for a job interview he hadn't applied for, he was wary to say the least. Still, he felt a niggling sense that this was important._

_Plus, the meeting was in a public place, that coffee shop on Newbury that he'd taken a liking to.  
_

_He stepped up to the counter and ordered his usual.  
_

_"I'm here to meet a Francis Eisenhart. Do you know if he’s here?"  
_

_"Oh, yeah, corner table," the barista said with a smile.  
_

_Alex walked over to find a very familiar wheelchair and fluff of brown hair.  
_

_"Hello, Alex," the man said without turning around.  
_

_"Charles?"  
_

_He sat down across from his old mentor. Why would Charles lie about who he was? Surely, he would know Alex would meet with him regardless. Yes, he'd been avoiding the mansion since he got back. He'd left Charles and Hank in a bad way. Honestly, he didn't think he would be able to take their looks of disappointment. The look Hank had given him alone was enough to keep him away. Like he’d been betrayed but that it was expected. Charles had looked as dead-eyed as he always did.  
_

_Alex had planned on going back. Just not yet.  
_

_This Charles, though...he looked different. He sat taller than he had, well, ever since he'd been bound to the wheelchair. His hair had been shorn to its length just after Cuba and was brushed back from his face artfully. He looked far more the part of the professor he'd seemed before Cuba than the cynical hippie he'd become by the time Alex left.  
_

_Charles' lips quirked. "I don't know that I'd qualify as a hippie but I supposed I looked the part, didn't I?"  
_

_It took a minute for Alex for the statement’s meaning to sink in.  
_

_“You read my mind. You stopped taking the serum?”  
_

_“I thought it was time to get back to work.”  
_

_“Does what happened in DC have anything to do with this? Magneto?”  
_

_Another quirk of his lips, this time more enigmatic. “You could say that.”  
_

_“What’s going on, Charles? Why call me here using a fake name?”  
_

_“I’m trying to stay under the radar at the moment. I’ll be short. I’m re-opening the school. Raven and Hank will be running it. I’m hoping that you’ll agree to return as well.”  
_

_“Wait, what? You got Raven to agree to stay in one place?”  
_

_“Oh, I imagine her guilt isn’t letting her go anywhere else for the time being,” Charles chuckled.  
_

_“What does that mean?”  
_

_“Just that. A great deal has changed since you left, Alex. I’ve reevaluated my options and decided it’s time to act on my goals. Now, are you ready to return to the family or not?”  
_

_There was a hardness to Charles’ posture now. One that made a pit of unease grow in his stomach.  
_

_"Just, just slow down for a second. You can’t throw all this at me and expect me not to have any questions. Why are you like this, Charles? What happened?"  
_

_Charles glanced out the window for a moment, but his gaze seemed more inward than outward. "A great many things.” He turned back to Alex. “But my eyes are open now and, as I said, I’m finally ready to act on my goals.”  
_

_“What goals?”  
_

_“None of your concern at the moment. For now, I’m more concerned with acting the part."  
_

_"It’s of my concern when it involves me dropping everything to move back to Westchester with you. And what part are you playing exactly?"_  
Charles just smiled with a glint in his eye. The inexplicable urge to bold washed over Alex only to be pushed down somehow. He sat back in his chair. "Something is wrong."  


_"Not wrong. Just different.”  
_

_“Different how? Stop evading and answer my damn questions! I’m not going anywhere until I know what’s going on.”  
_

_“I’m sorry, Alex, but I don’t have much time at the moment. Perhaps Raven and Hank can be more helpful.”  
_

_“No. I’m not going anywhere until-“  
_

_Next thing he’d known he’d been getting off the bus in Westchester.  
_

~Present~  


So when she opened the door, she expected yet another mutant claiming a bright-eyed man in a wheelchair had told them to come here. Instead, she found was a middle-aged man holding a thick manila envelope.  


"Raven Darkholme?"  


"Um..."  


"I have a package from a Charles Xavier?"  


She snatched it from his hand. What the hell would Charles be sending? He hadn't made any effort to contact them. There had been no sign of him since he'd disappeared. 

She'd gone back to Boston with Alex the day after he'd shown up knowing he would be long gone, but willing to take the shot. As suspected, there was no sign of him. If 

Charles didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be.  


"Are you going to sign for this?"  


"Yeah, yeah I'll sign for it."  


As soon as the door closed, she ripped open the package. There were several packets of paper, each looking very official. It took a solid minute of page flipping and skimming the seals and signatures before she realized what she was looking at.  


"Holy shit."

* * *

Alex paged through the second packet, looking dazed. "Well that explains the random mutants I guess."  


They'd gathered in Charles' study after all their guests had been fed. There had been grumbles about more sandwiches. Alex looked back at the paperwork. They were going to have to hire a cook. If Charles hadn’t taken care of that already. Had he? Shit, maybe he had.  


“Did he hire a cook?”  


Raven looked up from where the rest of the papers were spread on the desk. “Check the fifth packet, I think? The one about the cleaning staff.”  


Alex stood by Raven near the desk and flipped through until he found the file. Hank had shown some signs of life when the orders for lab equipment and supplies had appeared, but had since given up. He hovered near the window that Erik was listlessly staring out of from an armchair across the room. Erik's gaze occasionally flicked to the chessboard nearby. Every now and again his fingers would twitch at the window and a sour look would cross his face, but he made no moves otherwise to engage with it or any of them.  


Yeah, they were definitely fit to run a school. Go team.  


Because that was what Charles obviously meant for them to do. The paperwork was all taken care of. Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters had received expedited accreditation. All the certifications had been taken care of. The curriculum was included in the envelope along with a list of teachers to interview. Alex was teaching history and social studies because apparently that’s what war training and time in prison got you assigned. Thanks, Charles.  


A mutant-friendly cleaning staff had been hired and, yes, a cook as well. The rest of the package was notifications of upcoming renovations. Good grief, they had a roofing guy coming in three days. Landscaping came for a preliminary estimate the week after that. One of the teenagers who’d shown up last week had a mutation dealing with flora and was, as it turns out, supposed to be the gardener. An inspection was scheduled for May. Alex picked up a half hidden sheet he hadn’t seen yet. His eyes bulged.  


"Is- is this a bank account?! Geez, I knew Charles was rich, but..."  


Raven grabbed the paper from Alex's hand. "It's one of the investment accounts Charles' parents left him."  


"One of them?"  


"Were you under the impression that Charles ever needed to watch his budget?"  


They kept going through papers until Hank finally came over to look at them again.  


"I don’t get it,” Alex said. “His grand plan is to re-open the school?"  


Raven shook her head. "It has to be bigger. Why make Erik a zombie if this was all he was trying to do?"  


"To punish me."  


“Stop moping and start doing something useful,” Raven said without looking up. She started sorting the papers by apparent purpose. “We need a calendar. Figure out when Erik and Hank need to stay out of sight.”  


Erik was glowering at her. She leaned on the desk, letting her head fall. It was the first show of strain Alex had seen from her. She hadn’t been in a war, but she was as much a soldier as Alex was. Even the best trained soldiers could only take so much strain, though.  


“I'm sure cutting you off from your powers was part of Onslaught’s plan. That's not all of it though. He has something bigger planned. He always has. I called after he talked to me at the airport. We talked. He has another endgame. I just don't know what it is."  


"So how do we find him and stop him?" Hank asked.  


“Stop him from doing what exactly?” Alex replied. “Like Raven said, we don’t even know what his goal is.”  


Hank jerked in his direction. “If Erik is telling the truth about what happened between them-“  


“I am.”  


“-then he’s carrying a piece of Magneto within his mind now. I would assume whatever he’s doing has something to do with murder and mutant supremacy.”  


“Can we assume that, though?” Alex volleyed back. “What if this is all he's doing? Starting his school. Aggressively starting his school, but still. What if he's not doing anything sinister?"  


"He stole my power and erased Hank’s memory," Erik said.  


"Which, extreme as it is, was really only self-preservation," Alex said. “If Onslaught is in control, he’d want to stay that way, right? The biggest threat to that is Hank with his serum. Erik’s powers…well, that might also have been revenge, but either way we don’t know that he’s going to try to take over the world or enslave everyone or something."  


"We don’t know he isn’t either," Hank shot back. "You didn't meet Onslaught. You have no idea what he's like."  


"Technically I did. You’re not the only one he mind-whammied.” Hank glanced to the floor at that. “And, don’t get me wrong, I’m furious at him for that. I’m not saying he isn’t dangerous. But we need to look at what we know, not what we assume. He didn’t seem like he was trying to take over the world. He seemed more interested in getting me back here. What kind of grand plan would that play into?”  


“Getting us all in one place so he knows where we are.”  


“I- okay, you have a point there. But it doesn’t help us figure out what he wants to do in the long run. I may not have extensive experience with Onslaught, but neither do you. You knew him for, what, 36 hours? At most? That's not enough reconnaissance. Raven is the expert here. So, Raven, how worried do we need to be that Charles is trying to take over the world versus start a school?"  


Raven paused for a moment. Both Alex and Hank were staring at her. Even Erik had shifted his attention to her. He never could pass up information on an enemy, after all.  


"It's more than the school. Sorry, Alex. I don't know how far it goes though. Onslaught isn't a good person. Entity. Whatever he is. He wants control. He wants things to go his way. He wants people to see things like he does. He's a sociopath who wants to do all the things Charles wants to but won’t. And with whatever he took from Magneto in the mix, there are too many unknowns.”  


“But if we could figure out what Charles was repressing,” Alex started.  
Erik leaned forward. "The thing I fought was nothing like the Charles I knew. If he did such a thorough job of repressing his desires, how can we possibly know what they are? How well do any of us really know him?"  


"He’s my brother-"  


"Who you haven’t had contact with in a decade," Erik snapped. "Nor have I and, even before then, as odd as it is to think about, I hadn’t known him that long. I know him, but I don’t know how well. Alex left for the war. Hank is the only one who has had extensive experience with him in the past few years and he doesn’t seem to have any helpful ideas. We don’t have anything to go on."  


"Except we do," Alex said. "We already know part of his plan involved getting me here and getting the school started. What does that tell us?"  


"That he wanted his school started. That doesn't tell us anything new."  


"But I didn't have to be here. Why am I here? What does Charles want that involves me specifically?"  


"And me," Raven added. At the resulting pause, she continued, "Onslaught was pretty adamant at the airport that I come home. He knew I wouldn't leave once I knew Charles was in danger."  


"So, what, he wants the remnants of the X-Men all together?” Hank said with a huff. “That still doesn't help us."  


Alex shook his head. "It’s too early. We don't have enough information. He'll make another move. Until then, I don't think we can do anything other than keep an eye out for him and wait for him to do something that might help us put the pieces together."  


"So we just sit here and wait for him to do something?” Hank asked. “Let him build his school around us?"  


"You have another suggestion?"  


Silence. Erik tipped a knight on the chessboard over.  


"Fine. We wait. I hope you're right about this, Alex." Hank stormed out of the room. Erik stood and followed without a word.  


"That went well."  


Raven finished organizing the papers. "As well as it could. It’s not like we’re the best at working together right now. All of us have been gone. I know more about Onslaught and about Charles before you all came into the picture. Erik knows more about Charles than he likes to think he does. Charles was really taken with him when they met. Like, obsessive. They talked. You and Hank were there after...after I left. Hank knows the most about Charles now, except he refuses to talk about it. Not that I blame him.” She collapsed into the oversized desk chair behind her. “I think Onslaught finally broke him. But we need to be able to come together to figure this out.”  


Alex nodded. “And Onslaught may have given us a way.”  


Raven frowned.  


“He put us together for his plan,” Alex continued, “but he also inadvertently gathered everyone who has knowledge of the different parts of him in one place. With that combined, maybe we can at least gain some ground. Not today, but eventually.”  


Raven smiled for the first time that day. “That’s true. If we can ever get Hank and Erik to work together. Until then, do you want to help me figure out when all these things are happening and put it on a calendar?"  


"Let's do it."

* * *

Hank stopped to grab some food on the way to his lab, so by the time he got there, Erik must have been waiting for at least ten minutes. As soon as the door shut, Erik was out of the chair he’d been sitting in and facing Hank.  


“Have you been able to figure out a way to unblock my powers?”  


“No. I already told you it was a long shot. The brain isn’t my area of expertise. Have you had any luck accessing your powers?"  


"No. I was trying to open the window in the study…” The confession seemed to physically pain him. Hank raised an eyebrow. “I can sense metal around me and move smaller objects but nothing more."  


A tense silence fell broken only by the whir of the air conditioning coming on. Hank pinched the bridge of his nose when it became evident Erik wasn’t going to say anything else.  


“I don't know what you want me to do about it."  


“Figure out a way to fix it.”  


“I already told you, it’s not my area of expertise. Even if it were, I’m not sure I want to help you get your powers back after what you tried to do last time you had them.  


“You would keep me powerless?”  


“I would keep you from hurting innocent people.”  


Erik glowered. “This is your fault. You need to fix it.”  


Hank looked up, gaping. “How can you possibly blame me for this?”  


"You’ve been with him for a decade. You knew Onslaught was controlling Charles and you did nothing."  


"So it's my fault that Charles decided he'd had enough and gave into his dark side? That's what you're saying?"  


"You should have done something."  


"What the hell was I supposed to do? And, if I remember correctly, it wasn't until after you betrayed him and tried to kill his sister that he let Onslaught take over. So maybe if you want to throw blame around, you should look in a mirror. You weren't here. You didn't see what was happening. Everything went to hell and I didn't know what to do. This was never supposed to be my role. I was supposed to be a scientist!"  


"You had the chance to be a part of something bigger,” Erik snarled. “When the opportunity came, you wasted it. You chose to hide away and suppress your abilities. You suppressed Charles' abilities. You didn't help him."  


“I already had this talk with Raven.”  


"Your carelessness let a being possess your friend and mentor. And you take no responsibility-"  


"And what would you have done, Magneto? If you were in my shoes, what would you have done differently?”  


“I wouldn’t have let him-“  


“How? Tell me exactly what I was supposed to do. There was a man here telling us we were about to create a future where 90% of the population is dead. Two of our former allies who abandoned us on a beach with a bullet wound and no transportation were trying their damndest to create that future, whether they knew it or not. Our best bet at stopping everything from happening lay in a man who was drugging himself so he couldn’t use his power. And then he wasn’t anymore. His powers came back and suddenly an already powerful telepath became even more powerful without any explanation, and the only thing he would tell me is that he could stop the terrible future from happening. I may have made a deal with the devil but I didn’t do so lightly. I weighed my options. I would rather work with a wildcard telepath than risk the future Logan said awaited us. So, what would you have done? A man wearing your friend and mentor’s face tells you your friend agreed to let him take over and you can either agree to work with him or lose your memories of the encounter and with it any chance to figure out what might really be going on. How do you react?  


Erik stood leaning away from Hank, still glaring but now with a tinge of uncertainty.  


“That's what I thought. I chose to keep my memories so that I could figure out how to save Charles if Onslaught was lying. If you ended up being collateral damage of that decision, then so be it. Charles’ life means more to me than yours any day of the week. You clearly have no qualms about sacrificing either one of us for your own purposes. It's always about you and how things affect you. Would you have even cared about Onslaught if he hadn't gotten in your way?”  


Hank suddenly felt claustrophobic. He turned back to the door, Erik’s dead eyes following him as he went.  


“If Onslaught tried to kill you again, I’d let him.”  


With that, Hank walked out.

* * *

And so they went on, seemingly irrevocably broken yet limping onwards. If someone had told Raven that she and Alex would be holding together their little group while managing a school and trying to find a telepath who didn’t want to be found, she would have laughed in their face. Or maybe punched them, depending on her mood.  


Things went on like that for weeks. They’d arranged a tentative schedule for Hank and Erik to stay out of sight of contractors and workers. But after that day in the lab, the pair never occupied the same space alone. Erik disappeared onto the grounds who knows where while Hank locked himself in his lab. Raven was positive that one day Erik wouldn’t come back. Yet every night he was back for dinner.  


Their brainstorming board remained stubbornly empty. As Alex had suggested, they were waiting for Charles to make a move. Charles, though, was remaining stubbornly quiet.  


Until he wasn’t.  


Hank burst into Charles’ office (Raven’s now, though she couldn’t bring herself to think of it as such) and threw the morning paper at her.  


She looked at it then back at Hank. “What’s this?”  


“Page 3A”  


She pulled her gaze down from Hank to the paper and turned to page 3A.  


_Expert on Mutant Genetics Hired by Columbia University_  


The article was accompanied by a picture of Charles as Alex had described him, hair trimmed neatly and in full-on cardigan professor mode. The article focused mostly on Columbia’s innovative research program introducing mutant genetics to “accommodate to our changing world,” according to the chair of the department, and how they were going to do that with the “reclusive genius” who had finally come out of hiding “for the betterment of humans and mutants alike.”  


Raven frowned. “Get Alex and Erik up here. We need to talk before the inspector gets here for the final walk-through.”  


Hank left, no doubt to get Alex then task Alex with getting Erik.  


She picked up the paper again. “What are you up to, Charles? Why now?”  


She flipped through the next few pages when another headline caught her attention, this one smaller and towards the back.  


_Fourth Trask Industries Employee Succumbs to Mysterious Illness  
_

Carefully tearing the edges of the article, she wrote the date and location and added it to her private journal.

* * *

_Stamford, Connecticut_  


A man stood at his kitchen counter. His hands shook as he opened an envelope in front of him. Another tear dropped onto the address label, smearing the lettering. Behind him, the ghostly figure of a blonde woman dressed in all white hovered, blue eyes piercing his back.  


"One more, Jonathan. Just one more. It will all be over. Just like it was for us."  


With a choked sob, the man pulled a pill from the envelope. Another sob before he popped it into his mouth and swallowed.  


“Good man.”  


Jonathan had just enough time to burn the envelope and throw the remains in the trash before he seized and collapsed.  


The blonde watched the man with a small smile gracing her lips.  


"Jonathan?" a voice called from upstairs. The blonde's eyes move to the stairs as they started creaking with footsteps. She disappeared just as another woman appeared around the corner.  


"Jonathan, are you- oh my God, Jonathan?!"  


The woman screamed as she collapses to her knees next to the man. As she grabbed the phone, she didn’t notice the blonde woman behind her again. The blonde sent her an apologetic smile. It turned hard when she glanced up to see a letter in the dining room. She didn’t notice the woman had gotten off the phone until she ran through her to unlock the front door for the paramedics. The blonde disappeared just as the woman ran back, not sparing a second glance at the letter or the bold "Trask Industries" insignia stamped across the top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it! I’m still trying to figure out exactly how I’m getting to where I know I’m going, so no idea when the next update will be. Feedback is always appreciated! Seriously, the comments I’ve gotten over the past 18 months have been truly wonderful and inspiring in a difficult time. You all are the best! <3
> 
> Comic references: Francis Eisenhardt is taken from Charles’ middle name and Magneto’s real last name. Erik being zombie-like and different is a very distant reference to the result of Onslaught’s creation in the comics. When Charles pulls Erik’s consciousness from him, Erik ends up comatose. There’s also a whole thing with a clone named Joseph…it’s a situation that I’m avoiding. But I felt like this would be an okay loose adaptation that still kept Erik in the game. 
> 
> Hank, at this point, is pretty different from the Hank in the movies (not that the others aren’t too, just Hank stands out to me). For me, a betrayal by Charles pushes Hank over the edge too. As much as this story is about Onslaught and Charles finding himself, it’s about Hank and the others finding their way back to balance as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive any errors or repetition. This is unbetaed.
> 
> Chapter 1 Notes:
> 
> All the dialogue in Young Charles' first interaction with Old Charles ("Charles" to "...it will make you more powerful than you ever imagined.") is directly quoted from the movie.
> 
> I feel like Inception just happened. Old Charles is in Young Charles' mind while Young Charles is in Logan's mind. Actually, Onslaught is in Old Charles' mind while Old Charles is in Young Charles' mind while Young Charles is in Logan's mind. Boom. Also, hopefully having 3 versions of Charles didn't make this incomprehensible. So many pronouns and referents...


End file.
